libexpat now funded by the City of Munich for up to 6 months

A tiny piece of software that quietly helps computers read piles of internet data just got a surprisingly juicy glow-up: libexpat, a widely used open-source XML parser, is now being funded by the City of Munich for up to six months. Its maintainer, Sebastian, says this means that after years of juggling bug-fixing with a day job and normal life, he can finally work on it as his actual paid job—starting with five known security problems and general cleanup. For many readers, that was the rarest kind of tech news: government money going to boring but essential digital plumbing.

But the comments? Oh, they immediately made it political. One camp basically said, “Obviously cities should fund software they depend on”, with one commenter bluntly asking, “Cities shouldn’t fund the software they rely on?” Another turned the whole thing into a Munich lore recap, dragging up the city’s old Linux-vs-Microsoft saga and claiming Munich once resisted pressure from Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer before later being lured back by Microsoft’s “siren song.” Suddenly, this wasn’t just about bug fixes—it was a sequel in a long-running civic tech soap opera.

Then came the classic internet spice: a drive-by rant about Google, WHATWG, and the death of XSLT, which is the kind of deep-cut feud that makes outsiders blink and veterans nod grimly. There was also some gallows humor, with links to old maintainer-burnout discussions and even an xkcd comic as if everyone agreed that the real joke is how much of the modern world runs on underfunded code. The mood was equal parts “finally, someone is paying for the boring important stuff” and “wow, we are still litigating Munich’s Microsoft breakup in the comments.”