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Gnu Privacy Guard relies on one underfunded person (2015)
- kleer001 9y agoMisleading title. After the publication of this article that 1 Guy got a buncha money.
- ebcode 9y agoWell, it's misleading now. It wasn't misleading when it was published.
- kleer001 9y agoYes, and normal communication is such that we preface what we're saying if it's set in another time. We don't when we're talking about the present time.
- jasonkester 9y agoNot overly so. After having an article written about him, one guy got the better part of one year's salary in charity. In exchange for 18 years of work maintaining a piece of software that kinda everybody uses. Another reminder that selling goods and services in exchange for money still works better than giving things away and hoping somebody gives you a donation.
- sdrothrock 9y ago> After having an article written about him, one guy got the better part of one year's salary in charity. In exchange for 18 years of work maintaining a piece of software that kinda everybody uses. $60,000 from Linux Foundation's Core Infrastructure Initiative (one-time) $137,000 in donations (one-time) $50,000 a year from Facebook (recurring) $50,000 a year from Stripe (recurring) I think he got more than one year's salary in one-time funding alone, plus he's got a "salary" of $100,000/yr from Facebook and Stripe together.
- mjevans 9y agoThe most idealistic funding model that I can think of for this kind of work would be colleges (banned from 'tech transfer' and other money grabs) actually being used to advance academic research and 'core intellectual infrastructure'. Basic, public funded, 'research' and common components support.
- cat199 9y agoUnfortunately, in the US at least and probably elsewhere, the shift has been away from this, since it creates 'competition' with corporations, who also are major funders of both universities and the politicians which create legislation and funding applying to them...
- another-dave 9y agoYeah but he has 6 developers working on it now (including himself).
- sdrothrock 9y agoI had no clue! That's useful information.
- gilrain 9y agoIt's also useful to learn not to spout off when you "have no clue".
- Whollycow 9y agoYes but until one doesn't know one hasn't a clue then what does one do? Apart from 'spout off'?
- gilrain 9y agoListen to those who have a clue. One can assume one doesn't have a clue about things one isn't a specialist in, so it isn't a big mystery. Unless one assumes one is smarter than everyone around them, even on topics they haven't bothered to study. /sort of fed up with tech today, sorry
- a3_nm 9y ago> selling goods and services in exchange for money still works better than giving things away and hoping somebody gives you a donation The problem is, had he tried to sell GPG, I doubt many people would be using it now...
- X86BSD 9y agoWell to be honest few people ARE using it now. PK crypto has failed since its inception. It's never been widely adopted. PK has been too hard to implement and manage. In contrast to say openssh which everyone uses.
- geofft 9y agoWhat do you mean by "PK crypto"? (OpenSSH makes extensive use of "public-key cryptography", as does, say, HTTPS, and both seem to be massive successes, so I think I am understanding you incorrectly.)
- mikegerwitz 9y agoThat money pays for far more than Werner's salary: https://www.gnupg.org/donate/index.html https://www.gnupg.org/donate/index.html
- eugeniub 9y ago2+ year old article.......
- hardlianotion 9y agoBut there is potential for seeing what has happened since, and for followup. It is useful.
- stephenr 9y agoGPG is used by some for email sure, but it isn't the only option. S/MIME has native support in pretty much all native mail clients, and is more pragmatic about how you trust an identity.
- LeoPanthera 9y agoI bet that all the non-email uses of gpg are actually greater than the email uses. Its used as a component of many Linux distribution package managers, for example.
- stephenr 9y agoAgreed, and I don't mean to diminish the importance of gpg. But claiming all the worlds "encrypted email" depends on it is a bit of a stretch is all.
- mikegerwitz 9y agoNote that libgcrypt is also part of GnuPG, which finds its use in many projects as well.
- sigzero 9y agoThen maybe the distros should find a way to fund things they rely on?
- madez 9y agoSome companies rely on distros. Do these companies make sure to fund the distributions?
- nickpsecurity 9y agoI always tell people to just put the content in files that they then encrypt with GPG. Then, send them over some transport (eg email, IM, postal service). Makes usage really simple where you only need to know a few commands. Those can be turned into a shell script or GUI client if someone wanted to put work into it.
- 9y ago
- huntie 9y agoIt's worth noting that while GPG's financial situation is better now, GPG is still looking for funds. Here[1] is a post from June about their current donation campaign. [1] https://gnupg.org/blog/20170606-campaign-launch.html https://gnupg.org/blog/20170606-campaign-launch.html
- bahjoite 9y agoIt would be super if they were helped to achieve their EUR15K/month target, but after nearly three months, they're only a third of the way there (a situation that is made a little better by having a couple months worth of one-time donations). https://gnupg.org/donate/ https://gnupg.org/donate/
- another-dave 9y agoThe fact that someone of his ability can take an intern's wages to do this, and for that long, shows the incredible altruism in tech.
- wiz21c 9y agoThat shows his own personal altruism. I'm afraid that in tech, like in any other domain, altruism in gifted people is something rare (just because altruism is rare plus being gifted is rare). Now, everybody is doing his share, most of us are a bit altruist and a bit gifted in a way or in another. It's a question of scale.
- LolWolf 9y agoI'd argue that P(altruism | largely gifted) > P(altruism), but that being said, I completely agree with your statement. It's still a minimal amount of people in general (and with some good economic reasons, too).
- gilrain 9y agoThe broad altruism in tech that has allowed this situation, and which still underfunds the projects' modest needs? Yes, astonishing generosity.
- cuckcuckspruce 9y agoIt's almost like the "I got mine, buzz off" attitude is prevalent in not just the cartoon caricatures of <insert opposing political team here> but is prevalent in society as a whole.
- mmirate 9y agoEven further, it's almost like that attitude is the Nash equilibrium of human life. (And if it is, then we cannot expect rational people to deviate from it without significant imposition of force upon them.)
- 9y ago
- Digit-Al 9y agoIt seems like so much of the internet is reliant upon technology created by, and supported by, people who get little to no reward or recognition for their important contributions. An idea (not a serious one, but a point for discussion): in civil society we have a government that collects taxes that are used to fund the vital infrastructure that allows the society to function. How about if all ISPs were to charge a very small levy to customers? This levy would go to an independent and neutral body to be used to pay for the salaries of those who are creating the internet infrastructure we all rely upon. Obviously there would be many problems with trying to implement such a system across the entire world. Worth discussion though? P.S. I have no doubt that this idea has probably already been thought of and discussed before. There is nothing new under the sun :-) [edit: fixed fat finger typo.]
- thanksgiving 9y ago> How about if all ISPs were to charge a very small levy to customers? At least in the US, we know we can't trust the ISPs to "do the right thing". Maybe things are different elsewhere but I cannot support this idea in the US. Sorry.
- ianai 9y agoit seems too much to both not support a thing directly and also decry potential support as unfit.
- na85 9y agoThe ISPs would not support it. They would take the levy and find some clever loophole to steal it or to use it to reinforce their own walled gardens. You're talking about possibly the scummiest, least moral companies in the global tech industry.
- damnfine 9y agoLARGE ISPs. The small ones are fighting tooth and nail to survive and bring the local people better internet. It has to be folly to be in it for the money at many local scales unfortunately. Thats why I get one choice of 2mb internet here. There are local guys working out of a pickup truck laying copper and fiber to local business. #notallisps
- philippnagel 9y agoAre there any other projects of such nature?
- work_account 9y agoNot quite the same, but the time zone database was voluntarily maintained by some random guy for decades, until he got a lawsuit in 2011 and ICANN eventually took over. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3081281 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3081281 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tz_database#2011_lawsuit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tz_database#2011_lawsuit
- mprovost 9y agoncurses and the terminfo database (which ship with pretty much every Unix-like) are maintained by one person, Thomas E. Dickey.
- thomasjudge 9y agoIsn't the obvious answer here that he creates a company that offers "professional level" support contracts, ala Red Hat, Sendmail, ...
- thomasjudge 9y agoor a bigger picture company, like "The Internet Security Company" that funds him, openssh, ...
- TremendousJudge 9y agoWhat if he doesn't want to run a company? He isn't a consultant, he's a programmer. Being good at programming doesn't make automatically good at running a company, which requires a totally different skillset
- clarkevans 9y agoThis general problem is discussed in depth by Nadia Eghbal (now, with community outreach Github): https://www.fordfoundation.org/library/reports-and-studies/roads-and-bridges-the-unseen-labor-behind-our-digital-infrastructure/ https://www.fordfoundation.org/library/reports-and-studies/r...
- wmantly 9y agoThis is sad, we need to fund projects like this.