Historically, the Icon language design and implementation was well-funded by the National Science Foundation for many years. Although we will solicit them for support for Unicon-related projects, much of our current "help wanted" list is more "applied research" than "basic research", and the NSF may feel that they have spent enough money on Icon already.

Unicon is currently supported by the National Library of Medicine, for the development of specific language features and resulting Unicon applications that support their core mission. They funded the development of the ODBC interface to SQL databases, which many users had requested for Icon for a decade or longer. It is when someone steps forward and writes code, or funds it, that such improvements to the language can be made.

If you have a Unicon- or Icon-related project you would like to see happen, or would like advice or help with, Unicon Project would be happy to work with you on a contract or subcontract basis, or by coauthoring proposals to funding agencies. The University of Idaho is our hosting institution for research projects, while Jeffery Systems of Pullman, Washington provides training, support, consulting, and contract programming services. We are interested in projects that would fund generally-useful additions or improvements to the language, as well as projects that involve development of real-world applications in Unicon. Send jeffery@cs.uidaho.edu an e-mail if you have ideas or needs in these areas. Even small donations make a difference; you can donate as little as $0.01 via credit card on the Jeffery Systems web site.

We have taken steps to ensure that Unicon will remain free software, and the results of our work on it will remain free. Maintaining and supporting the language is a volunteer effort on your and our part. We are open to ideas and suggestions as to what practices to adopt or models to follow to ensure a good level of support for the language.