BlueHats prizes, a French initiative, awards €10,000 to maintainers of critical free and open-source projects. Simon Kelley, maintainer of dnsmasq, won the first 2024 prize for providing network addressing for small networks. Public officials recognized dnsmasq’s importance for network security. Kelley expressed his delight and the significance of public recognition for his 25 years of work. Dnsmasq, started in the early 2000s, is widely used in home routers, IoT devices, and Android OS due to its functionality and low resource requirements. BlueHats prizes aim to highlight critical open-source software and support maintenance efforts. Nominations for the remaining prizes are still open.
https://nlnet.nl/news/2024/20240418-BlueHatsPrize1.html