Sebastian's libexpat project, a fast streaming XML parser, is now receiving 6 months of funding from the City of Munich through their Open Source Sabbatical program. This marks a shift from part-time maintenance to a temporary employment contract, allowing focused work on critical tasks. The funding aims to address 5 known vulnerabilities, add XML 1.0r5 support, and improve project robustness and maintainability.

The project’s priority work includes fixing a vulnerability recently discovered by Mozilla, which required significant effort. Sebastian emphasizes that technical challenges like queueing theory and physics laws still apply, urging contributors to report valid issues. He specifically calls for solutions combining Clang-based Min GW with Address Sanitizer and Wine without crashes.

This funding provides unprecedented stability for libexpat, a widely used C99 parser under the MIT license. For years, maintaining it balanced with a regular job, but now it’s his primary focus. The City of Munich’s support ensures dedicated resources to resolve long-standing issues and enhance the library’s reliability.