libexpat, funded by City of Munich for up to 6 months
Original: libexpat now funded by the City of Munich for up to 6 months
Why This Matters
Municipal funding of critical open-source infrastructure signals growing government investment in software supply chain security.
Starting August 1, 2026, libexpat maintainer Sebastian Pipping is being employed by digitial@M under the City of Munich's Open Source Sabbatical program for up to 6 months to work full-time on the widely used C XML parsing library.
libexpat is a widely used open-source XML parser written in C99, distributed under the MIT license. Alongside libxml2, it is one of the most popular XML parsing libraries used across many software projects. Maintainer Sebastian Pipping announced on August 4, 2026, that he has been hired by digitial@M — under the City of Munich's Open Source Sabbatical program — to work on libexpat as his primary job for up to 6 months, beginning August 1, 2026. Pipping noted that for much of the past 10 years, maintenance work competed with his regular employment and personal life. His stated top priorities include fixing 5 currently known, unpatched vulnerabilities; adding support for XML 1.0 Revision 5; and improving overall robustness and maintainability. He noted that initial days were spent fixing a vulnerability uncovered by Mozilla. The engagement is a standard remote working contract with cancellation rights for either party.