The Direction interministérielle du Numérique – DINUM of the French government has awarded Simon Kelley with the BlueHats prize worth 10,000 euros for his stewardship of the Dnsmasq project for over 20 years. Dnsmasq serves as a dual-function program, acting as a DHCP Server for IP address assignment in networks and as a DNS Proxy for forwarding DNS queries. Kelley developed this program to connect to the internet from his home through his PC during a time when using routers at home was still a relatively novel concept (all connections were mostly done through the PPP protocol).
Today, Dnsmasq has become a staple in most small-scale routers worldwide. Developed in the C language, the program boasts a codebase of just 50,000 lines. The BlueHats award is a prestigious accolade bestowed by the French government to significant open-source projects. This year, there will be 4 awards, and Dnsmasq is the first awardee among them, with the ability to nominate other projects as well. The aim is to garner attention and resources for these projects to thrive, although Dnsmasq itself does not have continuous development funding, even though equipment manufacturers occasionally hire Kelley to add features.
Source: NLnet
TLDR: Simon Kelley receives the BlueHats award from the French government for his work on the Dnsmasq project, a vital component in small-scale routers globally, despite the project lacking continuous funding for development.
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