The NSF announces $21M to fund open source

I'm curious about this, specifically how burdensome it is to apply, and if there has to be some alignment between the project and any "political" government objectives.

I'm not familiar with NSF grants. In Canada, if the government decides to fund something, they want you to prostrate yourself on the alter of whatever cause is en-vogue with the public service, and won't just let you pitch a project on its technical merits.

I say all this because the funding could be good if it's un-encumbered, or it could be detrimental if it ends up further shifting open source project objectives towards politicized causes. I could be off-base, like I say, I'm coming at this from Canadian experience, where I would not want the government as a meaningful source of funding in the open source ecosystem

"Instead, the program aims to fund new managing organizations that catalyze community-driven development and growth of OSEs."

I've been writing free software since 1997. At no time was there any need for a "managing organization". The notion that it can "catalyze community-driven development" is utter nonsense.

This NSF effort is obviously being driven by people who have no idea about self-motivated software development.

As a free software developer I need hardware and I need funding for travel to conferences.

The only "managing organization" that makes any sense would be a small group of accountants. Their job would be to act like a University provost. They manage grant funding, dispersing funds, manage receipts, and handle taxes. Most government and business organizations won't give grants to free software developers because they don't know where the money goes.