Annual // Report 2017 Since 1997 NLnet foundation (after its historical contribution to the early internet inside and outside of Europe) has been financially supporting organizations and people that contribute to an open information society It funds those with ideas to fi# the safety$ robustness and pri%acy of the internet The articles of association for the NLnet foundation state' "to promote the exchange of electronic information and all that is related or beneficial to that purpose" Stichting NLnet is a recognised philantropic non(profit foundation according to the Netherlands Ta# Authority (*elastingdienst) The internet has no borders$ and neither does NLnet It operates internationally$ and is dri%en by donations from indi%iduals and from pri%ate and public organisations NLnet is independent$ and all pro+ects are based on open standards$ open source soft"are$ hardware and content Annual Report NLnet Foundation 2017 1 Introduction L.S., 2017 was a year of celebration for NLnet. It was an incredible 35 years ago this year when NLnet's history started with an informal announce ent to a s all grou" of com"!ter people. At the $!ropean %NIX users Spring e'ent in (aris )e!s Hagen re'ealed the E%net, on the face of it a s all initiati'e that would howe'er have ajor conse,!ences. )he Netherlands national center for athe atics, CWI, would act as the central node. A few years down the line the h! ble U%-( infrastruct!re would !nleash the open internet outside of the %SA, and one can e,!ally say it was a critical win for the global adoption of %NI& / which was b!t one of many operating syste s in use at the ti e. If it were not for that e'ent, today our com"!ters might be using di0erent instruction sets and we might have had an alternati'e 'internet' b!ilt on one of the competing technologies de'ised in for instance France, the U2 or Swit3erland. *owe'er, the prag atic combination of the internet protocol and UNI& proved a winning form!la. The combination had already been put to good use in Amsterdam act!ally two years before that, in the conte4t of another scientific instit!te at the Science Park in # sterdam. At the national instit!te for particle physics NI2*$1. *agen's CWI colleag!e Jaap Akkerh!is and his NI2*$1 counterpart Ted Lindgreen had b!ilt a groundbreaking optical I(/based network, to process the data from the linear particle accellerator 7a predecessor to C$RN) which was housed at NI2*$1. Lindgreen later became the director of NLnet when the informal acti'ities became a real organisation in 1:;:, while Akkerh!is le< for the USA and would re+oin the team a few years later. As the internet grew would spend countless nights and weekends in setting !" and deb!gging connections and first international gateways - for countries all the way u" to Australia, 'ia Japan and South Korea. Well before the first official public connection to the internet outside of the %SA was ade at CWI, Jaap personally con'inced 6on Postel to allocate hi a range of I(/addresses to avoid fut!re collisions. =n Septe ber 1:th 2017 6aap Akkerh!is recei'ed international recognition for his pioneering work when he was inducted into the Internet Hall of 1ame, alongside his former CWI>NLnet colleag!es )e!s *agen and ?aniel Karrenberg. 2017 was also the year in which NLnet celebrated two decades of being a public benefit organisation, and a relentless s!pporter of the open internet. )he operational parts of NLnet was sold to %%net in 1::7, and so that year marks the point when its initial trust fund was established. )hat generous act created an instit!tion we are all very proud of, and which has proven re arkably s!ccessful with 'ery li ited b!dgets. =f course there are challenges@ while NLnet was about 25A of all of the internet in $!rope at the ti e, 1::7 was still early days. The 'e4it' was made prior to the h!ge increase in re'en!e throughout the sector, and the relati'ely odest s! of the endow ent is not enough to make the e0ort s!stainable by itself. NLnet really depends on donations, grants, legacies and other forms of income to contin!e doing its work. Part of that work is gi'ing away strategic money to the right people sol'ing the right proble s in the right way, and we like to thin5 we are among the 'ery best in the world in doing so. 2017 howe'er was hardly about looking bac5 on the past for us, we spent all our energy on creating new history. .e were 'ery happy with the contin!ed cooperation with )he Com ons Conservancy and the $!ropean association of research networks GCANT. .e were com issioned a 'ery prestigeous st!dy together with Gartner $!rope, helping to de'elop the vision and strategy for the $!ropean Com ision's !pco ing flagshi" e0ort Ne4t Generation Internet. In order to do that we !ndertook a h!ge e0ort where we engaged with many di0erent technical com !nities, and dug deep into the trove of iss!es of todays internet. The res!lts were validated with a workshop at -.I, which brought Annual Report NLnet Foundation 2017 2 together a uni,!e grou" of e4perts / and of course echoed the i portant role that instit!tion has played in our history and the history of the E!ropean internet. We published some intermediate res!lts in 2017, b!t the final report of the NGI st!dy is e4pected in 201;. =!r reg!lar work contin!ed as well. .e managed to b!ild on the s!ccess of the Internet Hardening 1!nd, set !" with a si3able donation from the Netherlands ministry of Economic Affairs. .e were able to fund a n! ber of very interesting projects with significant donations from various international research networks, from the Netherlands national standardisation foru and from other foundations like Vietsch 1oundation. For one of the projects we +ointly operate with The Com ons Conservancy - Internet of Coins - we s!pported a very s!ccessful and innovati'e fundraiser which was able to raise illions of E!ro's worth of funding for their open source project. #nother way to sec!re income, is to earn it. We were 'ery happy to see contin!ed growth at Radically =pen Sec!rity, the not/for-profit sec!rity company set !" by dr. Melanie Rieback, John Sinte!r and others in 201F. %ni,!ely, 8=S chose not to send its profits to shareholders - instead it decided from the very start to sends its profits to NLnet. From a legal point of view, it uses a !ni,!e legal facility called 'fiscal fundraising entity' to allow those donations to directly benefit NLnet. 1or the first ti e since its transition to a charity, NLnet started a company in 2017. )he Com ons Caretakers B.V. H as the name says H helps organisations that !se and benefit from Com ons to gi'e bac5 and/or 'pay it forward' to take care of those Com ons. With hel" from any vol!nteers and in partic!lar a collaboration with The Com ons Conservancy and its 'arious Program e Boards, the company was already able to raise some funds for a n! ber of our projects in its first few weeks / and we hope the company will be contin!ing that s!ccess in the years ahead. Last b!t not least, saw the depart!re of Marc Bauw. Earc had worked for NLnet since 201F, and was a dri'ing force behind the set!" of ?INL, the Trusted Networks initiati'e and the Holland Strikes Gac5 e'ents. We take this opport!nity to than5 hi for his e0orts througho!t these years, and we wish hi great l!c5 in his fut!re endeavours. =n behalf of the NLnet team, Gob Goudriaan Eichiel Leenaars Chair Governing Board Director of Strategy Annual Report NLnet Foundation 2017 3 Table of Contents Introduction.....................................................................................................................2 Table of Contents...............................................................................................................4 1 NLnet organisation..........................................................................................................! History................................................................................................................................................6 Funding source...................................................................................................................................6 Domicile..............................................................................................................................................6 Supervisory Board..............................................................................................................................6 Governing Board.................................................................................................................................7 Operations..........................................................................................................................................7 Operations support.............................................................................................................................7 Review Committee Internet Hardening Fund......................................................................................7 2 Overvie$........................................................................................................................% Statutory goal and Mission................................................................................................................." Free So#ware & Open Source% Open Content% Open Hardware..........................................................." &ot'for-profit......................................................................................................................................" Co'operation......................................................................................................................................."