Harald Welte receives European SFS Award for three decades of free software work
· 45m ago · Originally reported by PPC Land
Harald Welte, known for his role in netfilter, the Linux firewall subsystem used in billions of devices, has won the European SFS Award recognising 30 years of open-source contributions. The piece frames his work on opening closed systems as a lens for examining transparency in ad tech code.
Why it matters
Open-source infrastructure like netfilter underpins much of the internet, including ad delivery and filtering systems. Recognising contributors highlights how much of ad tech depends on software the public can inspect.
Explain it like I’m new here
It's like giving a trophy to someone who spent 30 years leaving the recipe book open instead of keeping it secret.
Terms in this story
Go deeper
Related stories
Opera poll finds most US users only know the big four browsers
An Opera-commissioned poll of 925 US adults found 62% of mainstream users had not heard of any browser beyond Chrome, Edge, Safari and Firefox, though 85% said they would consider switching. The survey highlights how default placements and…
Week in Review: MFE Eyes France, RTL AdAlliance Updates AdManager, IAB Europe Flags DFA Concerns
VideoWeek's weekly roundup leads with MFE-MediaForEurope CEO Pier Silvio Berlusconi describing France as the "missing piece" in the broadcaster's European consolidation strategy. It also covers RTL AdAlliance's revamped AdManager offering…
Explainer: What net dollar retention tells you about an ad tech or SaaS company
Net dollar retention measures how much recurring revenue a company keeps and grows from its existing customer base over a year, before counting new customers. The piece walks through how the metric is calculated, how it can be stretched or…
Accenture-owned Downdetector tracks outages by crowdsourced spike detection
Downdetector, an outage-tracking service, flags when a platform or service appears down based on a surge in user-reported problems compared with normal baselines. Accenture has owned the service since June 2026.
ExchangeWire's MadTech Daily Rounds Up a Week of Commerce and Consolidation Moves
ExchangeWire's weekly Stack column recaps recent partnerships and deal activity across media and ad tech, noting that platforms are pursuing new ways to grow audiences, monetise content and improve their competitive standing. The excerpt…
ExchangeWire Announces Winners of The Wires 2026 Awards
ExchangeWire has revealed the recipients of its annual Wires awards, recognizing excellence across the advertising technology sector. The list highlights companies and individuals deemed leaders in programmatic, data, and digital media…