Yep NLNet basically turned from an ISP into a quango, specialising in distributing public funds in the FLOSS sector. Money goes practically directly from a decision of the EU Parliament to NLNet (and others) as noone wants the EU Commission to deal with the details and specifics, including the EU Commission itself. Specifics as in “do we allocate money to this or that project, how does that benefit / synergise with the larger infrastructure of codebases, do we file that under ‘supporting base infrastructure’ or ‘develop communication platforms for the civil society’ (as per goals for the funds, set by parliament) and who specifically is going to do the coding and thus get the money”. Quite common model in Europe in general, quangos aren’t as independent as true NGOs as funds always come with asterisks (hence the “quasi-autonomous” before “ngo”) but OTOH, hey, it’s funds. When they give out money it’s overwhelmingly either EU or the Dutch state doing things, or private donations, I don’t think they do corporate “charity”.