diff --git a/src/_blog/2025-05-grants.md b/src/_blog/2025-05-grants.md new file mode 100644 index 00000000..32ef4fa4 --- /dev/null +++ b/src/_blog/2025-05-grants.md @@ -0,0 +1,65 @@ +--- +title: Spring 2025 IPFS Utility Grantees +description: "We're delighted to announce the grantees for the Spring 2025 round of IPFS Utility Grants." +author: Robin Berjon +date: 2025-05-12 +permalink: '/2025-05-grants/' +header_image: '/utility-grants.png' +tags: + - grants + - funding + - ecosystem +--- + +The IPFS Implementations Grants program exists to advance the development, growth, and impact of the IPFS project +through a focus on developer choice and availability. We provide financial support to projects and teams working to +make IPFS accessible to more developer communities. + +We recently ran [the Spring 2025 grant cycle for utilities](https://ipfsgrants.io/utility-grants/), which supports +developers creating essential utilities, libraries, and tooling for the IPFS ecosystem. It was a tight competition with strong contenders +and we're delighted with the grantees who came out of this round. + +## rsky-satnav CAR Explorer from Rudy Fraser, BlackSky + +If you're anywhere near work on the [AT Protocol](https://atproto.com/) then you surely know Rudy Fraser, among other things for his +work on [BlackSky](https://www.blackskyweb.xyz/) and the [rsky](https://github.com/blacksky-algorithms/rsky) +(say "risky") projects. + +The grant will go to [rsky-satnav](https://github.com/blacksky-algorithms/rsky/tree/main/rsky-satnav) (Structured +Archive Traversal, Navigation And Verification — we do appreciate a quality acronym), a local-first and user-friendly +[CAR](https://dasl.ing/car.html) explorer for AT Protocol. + +CAR archives are a very convenient part of the IFPS ecosystem, used to package up multiple CID-addressed resources +in one bundle, and AT Protocol PDSs rely on them for data exports. But end users, even technical ones, have found +dealing with CAR files challenging due to a lack of tooling. We really look forward to playing with rsky-satnav +ourselves! + +## CAR Indexing from Ben Lau, Basile Simon, and Yurko Jaremko, Starling Lab + +Another issue with CAR files is that they are as diverse as the data usecases and ergonomics of the IPFS ecosystem: +while Filecoin uploading returns a CAR file, it sidesteps the UnixFS and thus most CAR tooling cannot reconstruct or +navigate its contents. As these big-data archive files are not introspectable with UnixFS tools, the [Starling Lab](https://starlinglab.org/) team is open-sourcing +some indexing tools they created internally which create a _private index_ of Filecoin uploads, rounding out a historic +tooling/interop gap in the ecosystem. + +Ben, Basile, and Yurko are developing a browser-based tool to help +locate contents within [Filecoin CAR archives](https://spec.filecoin.io/systems/filecoin_files/piece/), without relying on +public indexing services. This is a stepping stone to more general solutions for CAR indexing. It's definitely going to +boost that part of the ecosystem! + +## DASL Testing from Cole Anthony Capilongo, Hypha Worker Co-operative + +Not all heroes wear capes, many of the cooler ones write tests. Tests are important in development, but they +are particularly important when you're creating interoperable standards. The difference between a standard and +a random piece of paper isn't that the standard was blessed by a special standards organization — there are +plenty of worthlessly blessed pieces of paper out there — but rather that the standard has a comprehensive test +suite passed by multiple independent production-quality implementations. + +With this in mind, we're excited to also support [Cole Anthony Capilongo](https://hypha.coop/people/#Cole%20Anthony%20Capilongo) +(from the mighty [Hypha](https://hypha.coop/) working on a test suite for [DASL](https://dasl.ing/)'s +[dCBOR42](https://dasl.ing/dcbor42.html) (an interoperable subset of IPLD for deterministic data encoding) and +[CIDs](https://dasl.ing/cid.html) (a usable subset of IPFS CIDs). Cole will exercise the tests against +multiple implementations and help us fix bugs in the specifications too. It's going to be +fantestic. + +And beyond that, stay tuned: we will have more annoucements coming. diff --git a/src/assets/utility-grants.png b/src/assets/utility-grants.png new file mode 100644 index 00000000..f204ffce Binary files /dev/null and b/src/assets/utility-grants.png differ