NLnet
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The NLnet Foundation supports organizations and people that contribute to an open information society. It was influential in spreading the Internet throughout Europe in the 1980s. In 1997, the foundation sold off its commercial networking operations to UUNET (now part of Verizon), resulting in an endowment with which it makes grants.
NLnet is known for sponsoring open source software and standards work as well as auxiliary activities. Some of the projects that NLnet supports or has supported are DNSSEC,<ref name="DNSSEC">https://nlnet.nl/dnssec/ DNSSEC Fund</ref><ref name="InternetJournal">Internet Journal DNSSEC Fund Announced</ref> the ODF plugfest,<ref name="Plugfest">ODF Plugfest website: ODF Plugfest website</ref> the GPL V3 license drafting process,<ref name="FSF">Free Software Foundation GPL Version 3 Development and Publicity Project</ref> Tor anonymity network,<ref name="tor">TOR Project blog: The NLnet Foundation funds two projects</ref> the Parrot virtual machine, Namecoin,<ref name="namecoin">Namecoin blog: Namecoin Receives Funding from NLnet Foundation's Internet Hardening Fund</ref> Jitsi, nftables,<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> and Libre-SOC.<ref name="libresoc">Libre-SOC website:Libre-SOC.org</ref>
HistoryEdit
NLnet's history started in April 1982 with the announcement by Teus Hagen as chairman of a major initiative by the European Unix Users Group (EUUG) to develop and provide network services in Europe under the name EUnet. NLnet was the main node of the EUnet<ref name="Beertema">The start of EUnet Piet Beertema and Teus Hagen Template:Webarchive</ref> operating out of the Netherlands national center for mathematics and computer science CWI, and played a vital role in spreading first UUCP<ref name="Hauben">Hauben, R. & Hauben, J., On the Early Days of Usenet, the roots of the online cooperative culture</ref> and later the ARPAnet throughout Europe,<ref name="EUnet">Retrieved from LivingInternet.com: EUnet -- European Network</ref> earning Hagen and other pioneers a place in the Internet Hall of Fame. NLnet also pioneered the world's first dial-in and ISDN infrastructure with full country coverage<ref name="first coverage">Internet Hall of Fame website: INTERNET HALL of FAME GLOBAL CONNECTOR Teus Hagen</ref> by using the signal wiring<ref name="NS">Netkwesties: 25 jaar internet in Nederland</ref><ref name="Hagen interview">http://internethalloffame.org/blog/2016/12/07/breaking-rules-break-ground-global-internets-earliest-days Breaking Rules to Break Ground in Global Internet's Earliest Days</ref> from the Netherlands rail system owned by Nederlandse Spoorwegen. NLnet was one of the founders of the AMS-ix<ref name="AMS-ix">AMS-ix.nl: AMS-ix historical timeline</ref> foundation and the .nl registry SIDN.<ref name="SIDN">SIDN.nl Annual report Stichting Internet Domeinnaamregistratie</ref>
Stichting NLnet was formally established as a Stichting (Dutch for foundation) in February 1989. In November 1994 Stichting NLnet created NLnet BV (a Dutch Limited liability corporation or BV) as a commercial operating subsidiary and so incorporated the first Internet service provider in The Netherlands. In 1997 the Internet provision services company was acquired by UUnet,<ref name="acquisition">New York Times: UUNET TECHNOLOGIES ACQUIRES NLNET OF THE NETHERLANDS</ref> which had just become a subsidiary of MFS.<ref name="MFS">New York Times: Uunet and MFS Plan to Merge As Internet Meets Fiber Optics</ref> MFS was acquired shortly thereafter by Worldcom,<ref name="Worldcom">http://www.verizon.com/about/news/mfs-worldcom-merger MFS WorldCom merger</ref> which then initiated a takeover bid on MCI and later became a subsidiary of Verizon.
The acquisition provided Stichting NLnet with an endowment to transform into a grant-making organization, funding the development of Internet network technology and associated Computer Sciences research and development. The foundation is a recognized public benefit organization (in Dutch ANBI) and runs an open call where anyone in the world can submit proposals to improve the Internet,<ref name="open call">Retrieved from NLnet.nl: What NLnet can do for you</ref> as well as several thematic funds<ref name="thematic funds">NLnet website: Areas of special interest</ref> such as the Internet Hardening Fund.<ref name="IHF">Retrieved from NLnet.nl: Internet Hardening Fund</ref> Results are made freely available to the community in the broadest sense, typically under FOSS licenses and through Internet standards, web standards and the like.
In 1999, NLNet founded NLnet Labs, a network research laboratory in Amsterdam. NLNet Labs develops DNS-related software, such as NSD, Unbound, OpenDNSSEC and getDNS.