libexpat now funded by the City of Munich for up to 6 months
For readers new to Expat:
libexpat is a fast streaming XML parser. Alongside libxml2, Expat is one of the most widely used software libre XML parsers written in C, specifically C99. It is cross-platform and licensed under the MIT license.
Starting 2026-08-01, the "security vacation" of the project has ended and(!) I will be be paid to work on maintaining libexpat for up to 6 months thanks to the City of Munich under the umbrella of their Open Source Sabbatical program.
What does that mean?
For much of the past 10 years, working on libexpat has been competing with my regular occupation as a software engineer, chores, social life and re-creation. For the first time, I am now being employed to work on maintaining libexpat as my "regular job" for a limited period of time. My top priorities will be:
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Fixing the currently 5 known unfixed vulnerabilities
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Adding support for XML 1.0r5
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Further improving the robustness and maintainability of the project
Yesterday and today most of my time went into fixing a vulnerability uncovered by Mozilla.
Technically, I am being employed by digitial@M now for of up 6 months with a regular working contract, including cancellation by either party, remotely from home. There is plenty to do.
Unvalidated AI slop submissions will still not be apprecated, but for everything else: if you want to throw intelligence at finding further vulnerabilities in libexpat and send them my way, the coming months will be the best chance at getting things fixed in reasonable time. Queueing theory and laws of physics still apply.
Wish me luck!
PS: If anyone managed to combine Clang-based MinGW with AddressSanitizer and Wine without crashing at launch, please show me how and drop me an e-mail. Thank you!
Best, Sebastian
