24 ms·

Email Encryption Software Relies on One Guy, Who Is Going Broke

• dataminer 12y ago
  Just donated, GPG is quite a critical part of open source ecosystem. Please donate
• unreal37 12y ago
  There does seem to be a need for an "Internet fund". Pick 100 of the core free technologies that everyone relies on and pay people to maintain them.
  • minopret 12y ago
    I agree more would be better, but aren't there several now, such as the Free Software Foundation, the Software Freedom Conservancy, and the Apache Software Foundation?
    • smacktoward 12y ago
      If people like this are still falling through the cracks, clearly there aren't enough.
      • msl09 12y ago
        The problem with such organizations is their donations only go to affiliated projects. Mozilla donates to mozilla projecs, apache donates to apache projects, fsf donates to fsf projects and so on. Relying donations from occasional news cannot be healthy for the project. I imagine that during the next week the project will be able to amass a significant amount of donations but whenever this article is forgotten, the cash inflow will trickle. I kinda wish that such organizations could make patreon accounts. Or maybe a non-profit service with the same idea. The point is, it's hard to keep track of all the projects that need money and to manage such donations without blowing your budget. I can think of a few projects that I rely on a daily basis: firefox, xfce, fsf, freedesktop, python, debian, openbsd, transmission torrent, the gnome foundation, vlc, and there is probably a lot more that I can't remember right now.
    • pquerna 12y ago
      Apache Software Foundation does not pay any software developers -- so its a very different model than what you are proposing.
  • agwa 12y ago
    I'm really dismayed that the Core Infrastructure Initiative, which was created in the aftermath of Heartbleed to fund OpenSSL and other critical software, has chosen to prioritize NTP, and not GnuPG[1]. Most of the companies that rely on OpenSSL are probably using a distro that uses GPG to securely distribute the OpenSSL package. [1] http://www.linuxfoundation.org/programs/core-infrastructure-initiative/faq http://www.linuxfoundation.org/programs/core-infrastructure-...
    • smutticus 12y ago
      NTP is important as well. If I remember correctly, that decision was made around the time that NTPD was found to have multiple exploits allowing amplification attacks. Given that there are so many publicly available NTP servers, that makes it a pretty important project. The fact is that all of these projects need better funding. Frankly it surprises me that large multinational corporations that care about security don't just fund these people. The downside risk for them is terrible.
    • bowyakka 12y ago
      Visibility, those who scream loudest win, people were screaming about NTP (long before heartbleed as it happens).
  • thrownaway2424 12y ago
    Back when, there were one time acts of funding such as the red hat and va linux ipos that gave shares to authors of the software they were distributing.
  • dreamdu5t 12y ago
    ... maybe the problem is people working for free and giving software away for free? The open source culture is a vehicle for entrepreneurs and investors to profit from others' work without compensation. It's that simple. Hoping for donations to reasonably compensate developers is beyond naive.
  • emmanueloga_ 12y ago
    I was thinking the same thing. It would be nice if there was some donations hub for open source projects with some sort of mixed Patreon/Humble-Bundle mechanic were you could donate N bucks to X open source software projects, one time or in a monthly basis. The difficulties I see with this approach is 1) getting a trustworthy intermediate and 2) how to select the projects to allow the donations for. But 2) shouldn't be that hard because the users could, in the end, pick who they want to donate to.
• minopret 12y ago
  Can someone explain why GPG in the person of Werner Koch isn't substantially funded under FSFE? My first thought was the Software Freedom Conservancy. The only reasons I see for them not to take GPG under their wing are lack of will (but why?), sense of funding priorities (but why?), or the possibility that some GPG constituents would be concerned about associating GPG strongly with a US-based organization.
  • drzaiusapelord 12y ago
    Because this article is misleading. Apparantly, Koch has been subsidized by the german government thus felt no need to be used the FSFE. Secondly, gpg isn't really used for enterprise email, SMIME is or commercial php. There's a history of Koch that is pretty ugly. He tried to start a consulting company with said government money and seems to have a "pay me to fix bugs" attitude. This breathless "omg must donate now" sentiment dominant here is highly questionable. gpg should be under and funded by FSFE not via begdonations and german government funding.
    • reiichiroh 12y ago
      I'm curious to know if there's any proof for this?
    • skj 12y ago
      I have that "pay me to fix bugs" attitude, too. After all, my chosen profession is software developer and one of the things my employer pays me to do is fix bugs.
    • harkyns_castle 12y ago
      Yeah I'd be keen to learn more of the nefarious stuff, if it exists, in which case the donation gets pulled back.
    • jordigh 12y ago
      > seems to have a "pay me to fix bugs" attitude There's nothing wrong with that attitude. There's no reason why he should be doing work without pay. If people send him bug fixes and he refuses to merge them, that's something else. But he doesn't have to work for nothing. I assume that whatever money he may be receiving from the German government may be used for other kinds of developments, not bugs that don't affect him.
• agwa 12y ago
  Calling GnuPG "email encryption software" really understates its importance. It's also used in countless applications to encrypt data at rest, and GPG signatures are used to secure the distribution of software. For instance, GPG is an essential part of the package managers of Debian, Ubuntu, and RedHat. Here is a link to the donation page: https://gnupg.org/donate/index.html https://gnupg.org/donate/index.html
  • gandalfu 12y ago
    Thanks for the link, just donated!
    • adl 12y ago
      GPG is an integral part of the Open and Free internet. Imagine all the workflows that depend on verified encryption signatures like Debian, Ubuntu, etc and that's just software distribution, not counting privacy issues like journalists, political dissidents, whistle blowers, etc using it for secure communications. It was pretty easy to donate, took me less than 2 minutes. I encourage everybody that is able to make a donation, however small, every euro counts.
    • malandrew 12y ago
      Me too. This software is too important to not have someone dedicated to it full time. I left a note that he (like the EFF and the ACLU) should have a recurring donation option, or at least an option to receive a once yearly email asking for a donation. There are many people that would happily go with a recurring donation if that option were available.
      • jsonne 12y ago
        A patreon would be a good option. I would happily give $1 a month
        • ptaipale 12y ago
          Yep, but on the other hand it is probably better to give $20 every two years. Less transaction cost.
• teamhappy 12y ago
  I've been complaining about this on HN before; lot's of startups built chat apps on top of GPG during the whole Snowden thing and Werner can't raise $120,000. I'm really glad Pro Publica picked it up, but I also think we need to change to way we think about critical software like GPG. The GPG Tools team (GPG for Apple Mail) recently stated they need to charge for the tool in the future because they simply can't handle to amount of work anymore (it's still GPL) — the response from us was nothing but outrage. // I just realized all of this is mentioned in the article. My bad.
  • unfamiliar 12y ago
    >I also think we need to change to way we think about critical software like GPG Maybe the lesson here is not to license important software under such permissive licenses. Make it open source and free for non-commercial, require a donation if it is used in a commercial product. I don't really see how you can give something away for free and then expect companies to volunteer to pay for it.
    • takluyver 12y ago
      > open source and free for non-commercial, require a donation if it is used in a commercial product Every serious definition of 'open source' or 'free software' says that you can't discriminate by field of endeavour - if you have one set of rules for commercial use and one for non-commercial use, it's not really open source. And the nature of donations is that you can't require them. That's not to say that you can't build a business model around open source software. You can charge for pre-built binaries, you can charge for exceptions to the GPL license to build proprietary software with it (this is what Qt used to do), or you can charge for services associated with the code (e.g. running a hosted service). You can even technically charge for the code itself, though since anyone who buys it can resell it or give it away, that sounds precarious.
      • teamhappy 12y ago
        Nope. We call it Free and Open Source Software for a reason. Open Source means the code is open (i.e., you can study it), Free means it's licensed under a Free Software license (it doesn't necessarily mean free of charge). People usually omit the "Free and" part when they talk about FOSS. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_and_open-source_software https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_and_open-source_software // Anybody want to tell me why you vote me down? Am I wrong?
• kogir 12y ago
  This is sad but not super surprising. Historically, if you had money and wanted a reasonable UI and cleaner integrations, you bought PGP (now from Symantec). GPG was always for people unwilling to pay. For the record I donated. I'm just pointing out that writing something that's bundled and distributed as part of something else means nobody thinks about your project, or in many cases even realizes they're using it.
  • abandonliberty 12y ago
    PGP went commercial to deal with lawsuits, but it is still open source. I would like if someone with more understanding of the situation could outline the risks of allowing PGP to be the only implementation.
    • muyuu 12y ago
      His point stands though. GPG never caught on as a commercial product or something that people would pay for. Both are Open Source, that's not the issue.
    • dublinben 12y ago
      PGP is source-available with a proprietary license.[0] It was only ever free to use for non-commercial purposes. [0]http://www.symantec.com/connect/downloads/symantec-pgp-desktop-peer-review-source-code http://www.symantec.com/connect/downloads/symantec-pgp-deskt...
    • dredmorbius 12y ago
      PGP is not open source. Parts of its source code are viewable and reviewable, associated with key cryptographic functions. Much of what PGP builds is structure around that, and most of that isn't open in any sense of the word. Phil Zimmerman (who's long since left the building) does understand the value of source review, and the team who supported PGP continued that legacy. But it was quite limited in scope. That said, PGP also did work with other implementations, including GPG, to resolve compatibility issues -- I'm aware of a few of those personally myself.
• lawl 12y ago
  I think the biggest problem is visibility for these projects. They need to be louder. In the case of openssl, I had no idea that they were severly underfunded (until heartbleed). Same for GPG until now. I didn't hear they asked for donations. And I doubt I'm the only one. So I quickly checked if maybe this was big on HN at a point and I just missed it. https://hn.algolia.com/?query=GPG%20donation&sort=byPopularity&prefix&page=0&dateRange=all&type=story https://hn.algolia.com/?query=GPG%20donation&sort=byPopulari... https://hn.algolia.com/?query=GPG%20fund&sort=byPopularity&prefix&page=0&dateRange=all&type=story https://hn.algolia.com/?query=GPG%20fund&sort=byPopularity&p... https://hn.algolia.com/?query=GPG%20money&sort=byPopularity&prefix=false&page=0&dateRange=all&type=story https://hn.algolia.com/?query=GPG%20money&sort=byPopularity&... Nope. It's not just me. If not even the most technical people (that actually know what GPG and openssl are without looking it up) don't hear about this, how are regular people going to find out where to throw their donations at? I think people would donate if they knew about it. I'm going to send this guy $100 and consider it a license fee, because he deserves it.
  • pyre 12y ago
    I knew that the developer pool for GPG was pretty small, and that this is a big reason why development isn't always fast. On the other hand, I had no idea that he was working full-time on it, and having money trouble. Also: If you search for "GPG Koch" you can come across this comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6942254 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6942254 EDIT: An example of development that is slow-coming: library support. Most GPG "libraries" in languages like Python and Ruby are just wrappers around the GPG command-line, because there is no proper library.
    • nitrogen 12y ago
      Wrapping the command line should be a little bit safer from a security perspective, since a memory exfiltration bug won't transfer across processes. Just don't use the shell between the wrapper and the command.
      • pyre 12y ago
• deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
• tw04 12y ago
  It's a sad day when Farmville can become a billion dollar business and Werner can't feed his kids. I'm curious if he's truly living on ~$20k/year. That seems ridiculously low for life in Germany. Or if he's got other sources of income to bolster that. Either way, what really needs to happen is companies that build programs off his work need to make a concerted effort to donate to the project. Heck, set aside a small percentage of revenue and consider it a cost of business.
  • abc_lisper 12y ago
    I hear you brother. Strange world indeed. I don't use GPG but I am donating some, just to tilt the balance a bit.
  • nperson 12y ago
    I personally know lots of people here in Germany living off 20k/year and less. More would be better, but it's doable.
• smcl 12y ago
  I had no idea this project (and others) had so few contributors. I'd love to be involved in some Open Source project but I always feel like "yeh there's probably millions of people far more talented than me wanting to contribute" and I've no idea how to start. Some people suggest taking a look at the open bug lists for software you use frequently, but on the few occasions I've tried that (python, gcc, and a couple of others) I've ended up digging through lists of tough bugs each with fairly impressive sounding discussions by people who are way more familiar with the whole ecosystem than I am and it's sort of intimidating. I did manage to do some isolated contributions to Open Corporates (http://turbot.opencorporates.com http://turbot.opencorporates.com) where the community are super-welcoming and very patient, but I've felt a little isolated and like I'm not exactly giving much back. Apologies for the mildly-OT rambling.
  • pyre 12y ago
    > I've ended up digging through lists of tough bugs each with fairly impressive sounding discussions by people who are way more familiar with the whole ecosystem than I am and it's sort of intimidating. Sometimes it's small things, like documentation. For example: http://bugs.python.org/issue17701 http://bugs.python.org/issue17701
    • shackenberg 12y ago
      Good point, but you have to admit that the site does not look inviting at all and that a novice has no idea where to start.
      • bloodorange 12y ago
        https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/contribute/ https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/contribute/ Mozilla is quite friendly and makes it easy to contribute. I've had quite a pleasant experience whenever I tried to make a contribution.
      • zanny 12y ago
        KDE actually marks easy jobs as junior jobs for new contributors: https://bugs.kde.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=UNCONFIRMED&bug_status=CONFIRMED&bug_status=ASSIGNED&bug_status=REOPENED&cmdtype=doit&keywords=junior-jobs https://bugs.kde.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=UNCONFIRMED&bug_... And their bug tracker is fairly pretty too.
• a3n 12y ago
  He's been voluntarily cheated. He should take a job, take care of himself (no one else will), and give gpg whatever time he has left, if he has the energy.
  • tormeh 12y ago
    This. I mean, if anyone would miss him working on it, they would already be donating yearly anyway. Right? You shouldn't always work just for money, but this is financial ingratitude.
    • 15thandwhatever 12y ago
      By the time he searches for a new job, interviews, successfully gets a new job, stops contributing, and people finally NOTICE that he's abandoned the project: it's already too late. You can offer him all the $5 donations in the world, but he has a full-time job now and has no reason to return to this life of "financial ingratitude". I'm pretty sure we all would miss him working on it, either directly or indirectly, I think, as developers, we do a horrible job of assessing our blind spots when it comes to infrastructure.
    • a3n 12y ago
      It's not normally in me, but I'd like to be a little forgiving toward users of GPG and similar infrastructure, particularly money-making BigCos. Open source, particularly reliance on open source by said MM BigCos, is relatively new. It may not be financial ingratitude. It may be that we just haven't reached a sensible equilibrium between the two symbiotic ecosystems. At some point in the future, "due diligence" might commonly include identifying these sorts of tools, and their developers, and deciding either to not use the tool or to fund the tool's health.
  • hackuser 12y ago
    > He should take a job, take care of himself (no one else will), and give gpg whatever time he has left, if he has the energy. In your scenario, what will happen to GPG? The world just loses this essential asset?
• api 12y ago
  This is why "free as in beer" is a problem for "free as in freedom." Just to maintain things costs money because people take money to live, not to mention how much it costs to field things that are competitive on UI/UX and other metrics with big closed ecosystems.
  • longlivegnu 12y ago
    https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9004435 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9004435
• moreati 12y ago
  In the last hour or so (I think since this hit the front page) there have been approximately €2000 of donations added to the drive at https://gnupg.org/ https://gnupg.org/, nudging it over €40000. Please do your part, and keep that bar moving.
  • twothamendment 12y ago
    I gave my 0.02. Ok, a bit more than that, but everything helps. I don't know what I'd do without GnuPG. It has so many uses beyond email...
  • tempestn 12y ago
    Over €55000 now!
  • Zaytes 12y ago
    donated 20 EUR, was at 99987.
• andrewla 12y ago
  For bitcoin donations, you can go to [1], which gives the address as 12LKeo24XCzgz6ASSxcUa8BvUfzkEyCpGq [2]. The address is not generated per user, and is dedicated to GnuPG. [1] https://www.wauland.de/en/donation.nojs.html https://www.wauland.de/en/donation.nojs.html [2] https://blockchain.info/address/12LKeo24XCzgz6ASSxcUa8BvUfzkEyCpGq https://blockchain.info/address/12LKeo24XCzgz6ASSxcUa8BvUfzk...
  • nitrogen 12y ago
    Is this address verifiable on the GPG site?
    • jepper 12y ago
      See: https://gnupg.org/donate/index.html https://gnupg.org/donate/index.html The Wau Holland Stiftung takes the BTC and pays it out to the GnuPG project. Its a foundation that has its roots in the CCC and supports all kind of open source and/or hactivists projects.
      • schoen 12y ago
        Named for Wau Holland, one of the founders of the CCC (and the Datenschleuder): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wau_Holland https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wau_Holland
  • Torgo 12y ago
    Can someone signal boost this on bitcointalk or other bitcoin communities? They are huge users of PGP. I don't have accounts on any of those sites or I'd do it myself.
    • rnhmjoj 12y ago
      I have spread the word in bitmessage chans. People there are certainly concerned about privacy and love free software.
  • nicpottier 12y ago
• mseebach 12y ago
  Given the general scarcity of talent in the business, it should really be trivial for a high end IT security consultancy to pay Werner a €3000/month (ie. enough to live on, if not extravagantly) retainer to be available ~10 hours a month to consult on encryption matters (or something like that). I wonder if it all really comes down to "Really I am better at programming than this business stuff." or if there is some unstated dogmatism that gets in the way. It seems to me there's a parallel to someone like Moxie Marlinspike who's vaguely in the same field, but seems to be doing very well for himself.
  • tedks 12y ago
    >It seems to me there's a parallel to someone like Moxie Marlinspike who's vaguely in the same field, but seems to be doing very well for himself. Moxie Marlinspike was doing well for himself when he was squatting in pgh and train-hopping, too. Some people are just better at coercing life into doing what they want to do. I think it helps that Moxie is probably a few standard deviations more intelligent than most humans, but that's just a bonus.
    • rhblake 12y ago
      Don't know about Moxie's situation, but Werner Koch also has a young child and a wife [who's not working, according to the article] to support.
  • tptacek 12y ago
    The task of maintaining GPG isn't principally cryptographic. GPG is one of those classic un-fun projects that the open source community is notorious for neglecting. So the problem isn't finding and funding cryptographic experts to work on it; the problem is finding Werner Koches who are willing to take on the slog of making sure GPG continues to work. Look at how many crappy, trivially broken crypto messaging systems are posted to HN every year. Some of them even get funded! Nobody wants to work on GPG, which makes what Koch is doing even more important.
    • mseebach 12y ago
• peterwwillis 12y ago
  And this is the weird conflict with open source software. OSS is primarily written because somebody needed it and didn't have it. If they have it, and it works, they have no need to write it or support it. Eventually somebody stops supporting it, and then we all realize we're in trouble, somebody forks it and support is taken up by somebody who needs it. I think this works. It's sad that it depends on exploiting the virtually unpaid work of a few committed die-hards. But basically, it's the only way we can have good gratis software without something stupid like bundling ads, lack of source code or 'services-based' models. It's clear from all the other unfunded OSS projects that corporate sponsorship isn't going to happen unless they're getting something in return.
• simonvc 12y ago
  Donated.
• ChuckMcM 12y ago
  I wonder sometimes if this is the legacy that RMS was thinking about. Sometimes, in my more cynical moments, it seems like we have somehow managed to trick a whole generation of programmers into giving "free stuff" to the world, enabling the creation of the very successful mega corporations which have then kept the value for themselves. Would it be impossible to create some sort of stipend program at FSF? After all the creation and maintenance of software is allowed to cost money under the GPL.
  • jordigh 12y ago
    > I wonder sometimes if this is the legacy that RMS was thinking about. No. Free software was never about no money being involved. In fact, RMS himself used to get a lot of money by selling free software. Back in the day when Emacs was too big for the internet, RMS used to sell Emacs tapes at 100 USD each (with documentation and source code, of course). In fact, he still thinks that you should be charging money for distributing free software: Distributing free software is an opportunity to raise funds for development. Don't waste it! https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/selling.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/selling.html He also thinks selling exceptions to the GPL is another good way to support yourself. FFTW and Qt are two prominent projects I can think of that did this. https://www.fsf.org/blogs/rms/selling-exceptions https://www.fsf.org/blogs/rms/selling-exceptions The GPL itself is anti-freeloading. We give you the code, you can do whatever you want with it, but if you want to build on top of ours, you have to give back. It's all about levelling the playing field for everyone. I have really hoped that the current app store model would turn out to be a great way to sell free software. A convenient way to pay, and you can download and install whatever you want. Optionally, you can have a link to the source code. Sadly, it doesn't seem to be happening this way. I don't understand why not. Perhaps I too am being too idealistic.
    • ianlevesque 12y ago
      > Sadly, it doesn't seem to be happening this way. I don't understand why not. In at least one case it's because a single open source contributor with an ideological conflict with App Stores was able to get an app removed: http://www.tuaw.com/2011/01/08/vlc-app-removed-from-app-store/ http://www.tuaw.com/2011/01/08/vlc-app-removed-from-app-stor...
• gommm 12y ago
  I've just donated. It's an important project and Werner Koch needs to be rewarded. I feel that we, as a community, are really bad at supporting some of the opensource projects that powers our infrastructure. I'm not sure what can be done to improve this. Maybe we need a foundation that raises money for those projects and does the marketing needed to remind us to donate. I for one wouldn't mind giving say 30 euros/month to be redistributed between projects like GPG, openssh, varnish, nginx, openssl...
  • digikata 12y ago
    After the big openssl bug, wasn't there some intent among some of the existing foundations to try to identify open source keystone projects and get them additional attention & support? It seems like the privacy advocacy groups might route some spending to GPG just as a pragmatic matter.
  • sanderjd 12y ago
    You are right that we, as a community, are really bad at supporting key open source infrastructure. But I also think that relying on donations from individuals like us is a fundamentally wrong model. I don't benefit directly from GPG, but I benefit from many services that make use of GPG and make lots of money off of me.
    • gommm 12y ago
      I completely agree that the services and companies that rely on those technologies should also contribute. But as a software developer, I use openssh daily in my job. I use tmux, I use nginx, I use openssl and a lot more opensource projects and they allow me to make a living. So, it makes sense for me to contribute.
      • sanderjd 12y ago
        I don't disagree at all, but as you say, you do those things in your job. It's likely that you also use them outside your job for personal purposes, which is why I agree that it makes sense for you to contribute. But most employees don't (and shouldn't) feel like it's their duty to pay for the tools they use to do their jobs.
• jackreichert 12y ago
  It would be really great if you could run an apt-get/yum filter on your server and retrieve a list of donate links for the open source services you rely on. Ideally, a GPL+donate-what-you-can would really help maintain these projects.
• fellowshipofone 12y ago
  Just like many here, I had no idea, and this is so important. I hope HN community will blow up this donation page!
• snissn 12y ago
  why doesn't he watch some youtube videos on lean startups, write a business plan and raise some VC money?
  • vbezhenar 12y ago
    Probably because he's good at writing code, not writing business plans and raising money.
    • itistoday2 12y ago
      That, and there's unlikely to be a compelling story for VCs here. There are many many projects that are great and valuable to humanity and yet are not VC fundable.
• csl 12y ago
  So I just donated €20 and I invite others to do it as well. (And they use Stripe for payments, which of course is relevant here on HN. And as a first time user, it was a breeze to donate.)
  • daddykotex 12y ago
    I gave a little €5, but I'll gladly give more when I have more income, I'm still a student :P I used PayPal and it went like a breeze too.
• ctdonath 12y ago
  But wait, I thought fame and accomplishment and helping lots of people were supposed to be enough for software authors, that somehow making people pay for software was evil, that it's OK if everyone just copies your source code and uses it, that an Open And Free Internet would be self-sustaining? /sarc
  • malkia 12y ago
    Making people pay for software might still be evil, but supporting software with teaching how to use it, documenting it, publishing books about it, making conferences, supporting it is what I think is a reasonable way for oss spirited souls to make money. SQLite comes as an example - while completely free, public-domain, what might (I don't know for sure) be making money for the three people behind it is the extensive test suite, various other extensions (compression, security) and possibly support/integration/customizations for specific needs (less memory/cpu usage, or who knows what..) I'm also amazed at Mike Pall's luajit's effort, and he keeps his sponsors page here: http://luajit.org/sponsors.html http://luajit.org/sponsors.html I've never used directly GPG, but since I'm debian/ubuntu user I've donated money after reading one of the posts here.
    • teddyh 12y ago
      Making people pay for software is not evil. It is not giving those same people the source code that is evil. This is because by not giving them the source code you are keeping your users under your thumb and not allowing them the freedom to improve their lot.
      • briandear 12y ago
        When you buy a dinner at a restaurant, the chef ought to be compelled to share the recipe? No one forces you to eat at restaurants or use software. You are free to make your own.
      • ctdonath 12y ago
        https://developer.apple.com/xcode/downloads/ https://developer.apple.com/xcode/downloads/ Free. Improve your lot however you like.
• deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
• droque 12y ago
  I wonder if a patreon-like (or even patreon itself) would be more effective raising donations than just one-time donations. I know enough people that swear by gpg, so it doesn't strikes me as hard finding a base.
• duckingtest 12y ago
  I think he should start a US nonprofit, or even better start cooperating with an international one, as that would allow people to deduct donations from their income. It's a lot easier to donate if you know that otherwise 30%-50% of that would go to the ever hungry state... edit: It turns out every EU citizen can deduct a donation to GnuPG from their incomes! https://www.wauland.de/en/donation.html#61 https://www.wauland.de/en/donation.html#61
• go1979 12y ago
  I like his office setup. Dual monitors, raised base for monitors, plexo? lamp, white board, real keyboard.
  • daveloyall 12y ago
    IBM Model 30. One of the few keyboards that doubles as a melee weapon. :)
• _wmd 12y ago
  GnuPG sounds like a prime candidate for Linux Foundation's core infrastructure initiative. http://www.linuxfoundation.org/programs/core-infrastructure-initiative http://www.linuxfoundation.org/programs/core-infrastructure-... If they're willing to fund a new NTP implementation then they should be able to drop a few coins in the GnuPG bucket too
  • carsonreinke 12y ago
    Strange you cannot seem to just donate to the Linux Foundation, you have to become a member?
    • _fizz_buzz_ 12y ago
      Yes you can: https://www.linuxfoundation.org/participate/linux-donate https://www.linuxfoundation.org/participate/linux-donate
      • carsonreinke 12y ago
        Oh my bad.
  • sp332 12y ago
    he already receives a $60k/year grant from them https://twitter.com/dmw_83/status/563448845733203970 https://twitter.com/dmw_83/status/563448845733203970
• mwsherman 12y ago
  The question is the wrong one. The better question is: why does so much software choose to depend on an underfunded library?
  • 72deluxe 12y ago
    Because they can get the source and not have to pay a penny for it? For businesses, that's a good selling point.
• BjoernKW 12y ago
  The problem boils down to "Really I am better at programming than this business stuff.". Someone with his talent and expertise should have no problem with getting highly paid consulting gigs. Then he could continue working on GPG in his free time and even use the consulting income for hiring additional programmers to work on GPG. There are quite a few product-based businesses that could be built upon GPG as well (secure email, corporate communication tools, some kind of public-key-based social network come to mind ...). These could be used to support the continued development of GPG itself. It's of course not as easy as it sounds. Not everybody wants to deal with 'all that business stuff' and that's fine but then by all means find someone who can help you with that part. If you want to change the world sometimes idealism alone just isn't enough. You also have to proactively deal with the everyday stuff like where the cashflow for paying the bills will come from next month. There's also a problem with the purism put forth by some of the 'free as in freedom' enthusiasts, most notably Richard Stallman, who seem to gloss over the fact that coders have to make a living, too or who even frown upon making money with software altogether. Software eats the world but even RMS can't eat software. How many successful larger companies come to mind whose business model is based upon open source? Red Hat, Ubuntu and that's about it. If we truly want to avoid dilemmas like this one we also need to think about how to successfully implement sustainable open source business models.
  • Kalium 12y ago
    Stallman doesn't and has never glossed over that programmers need to make a living. He has no qualms about charging for software and has happily done it himself. He says it's wrong to use licenses to force people into depending on you.
    • BjoernKW 12y ago
      Good point. It's not that clear and easy in all cases though. Besides, Stallman once disparaged SaaS business models as unfree and essentially a problem to be dealt with. While that in way makes sense from his point of view, it's problematic for developers who try to make a living with providing a useful service. I very much agree for all system software and especially cryptographic and security-related software. What about a developer or a company though that's put several years worth of work into developing a particularly useful novel solution to a specific business problem? If they use a proprietary license they'll at first force others into depending on them once they start using the software but is that really wrong in every case? If on the other hand they immediately release their code under an open source license they might effectively commoditize their novel solution. Sure, they might be able to recoup some of their up-front investment but in most cases this won't be a sustainable business model. Releasing the source code only to paying customers might seem like an obvious solution but depending on the nature of the software and the industry the customers might decide to just pay once and afterwards sideline the developer. Continued innovation can serve as an incentive to pay for updates but again this doesn't apply to all fields and industries. Licenses such as AGPL might be a remedy, too but from experience I can see that software licensed under these or similar terms is mostly avoided in business contexts. I'm not sure if there's any company that's built a viable long-term business on a dual-licensing model. Not every closed source (or only partially open source) software product is created with malicious "Let's blackmail the customer into using our software forever." intent. Sometimes, it just makes good sense. However, in those cases I think companies should at least make provisions for releasing the code if they go out of business.
• kylec 12y ago
  I wish there was a sort of "Patreon for open source" nonprofit service where I can support projects like GnuPG, OpenBSD, etc all in one place.
  • unreal37 12y ago
    Would Patreon or Gittip (which has changed its name to something I can't recall at the moment) not work for this? In fact, Gittip's original mission was tips for open source projects.
    • mholt 12y ago
      Gratipay. Unfortunately their execution has been a bit poor, and it's under-delivering. There's too high a barrier to start donating and there's no clear option for one-time donations.
• beaknit 12y ago
  Just donate, for christ's sake
• JeremyS 12y ago
  Donated...
• excel2flow 12y ago
  For that matter, I don't know what I would do without BouncyCastle: https://www.bouncycastle.org/donate/index.cgi https://www.bouncycastle.org/donate/index.cgi This article made me think about donating.
• danso 12y ago
  Hopefully this article leads to a call-to-arms in the dev community to come up with best marketing/fundraising practices. I know that the idea of meritocracy is very powerful (and not altogether wrong)...but it's a tragedy when great software doesn't get the minimal exposure because of relatively easy friction problems that can be fixed. I think of all the random, stupid things I've backed on Kickstarter, simply because I saw it on a friend's Twitter feed...things like GnuPG may not get as much consumer reaction as most Kickstarter widgets, but there are enough developers with disposable income who would happily donate to open-source-in-need if such causes were just slightly more visible.
• javajosh 12y ago
  This is a terribly injustice, and points to a larger systematic problem, that we software practitioners benefit greatly from the efforts of others to whom we barely offer anything back. And while the media can help (as in this case) what we should be looking for are systems to help with the situation. My ideal would be a system that monitors my package manager activity, and then using an algorithm I control, allocates "pieces of the pie" to each package I install and use. Then I determine how big the pie should be, and how it should be funded. E.g. if I'm working for a company, I'd request as part of my contract that I get a $200/mo software budget. Or I could just fund it myself. If even a small fraction of us did something like this, the open-source world would blossom, and injustices like this one would be eliminated.
• coldcode 12y ago
  Why is there no Kickstarter equivalent for ongoing open source projects instead of just new things?
• deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
  • r0naa 12y ago
    I don't know much about the subject but what about flattr, aren't they trying to solve this problem?
• hughes 12y ago
  Lack of funds doesn't even sound like the biggest problem here. If the project relies on one guy, what happens when he's gone? Seems like something this important should have a higher bus factor. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bus_factor http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bus_factor
• joycey 12y ago
  Here's something I think should get more love and is pretty relevant: a service that will automatically pay a percentage of Bitcoin donations for every submission to a GitHub repository: https://github.com/WhisperSystems/BitHub https://github.com/WhisperSystems/BitHub So if you donate to Open Whisper Systems, you can see that your donations are going directly to those that are contributing to the project, and you get paid more if you're contributing more. I've sent in a few PR's to their iOS repo, and it'd be awesome to see it implemented in other privacy OSS projects. It's obviously not a perfect system, but I think it's a pretty cool way of funding OSS.
  • tjl 12y ago
    I'm part of the SymPy project and we opted out of a similar program tip4commit. It's a bit easy to game. If you do it per commit, someone could just break up their work in smaller commits. The same thing with pull requests. I can see bounties for issues fixed, but a per commit system is fundamentally flawed.
• liveoneggs 12y ago
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netpgp http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netpgp
• jakemcgraw 12y ago
  Just donated, and you should too! https://gnupg.org/cgi-bin/procdonate.cgi https://gnupg.org/cgi-bin/procdonate.cgi
• dreamdu5t 12y ago
  This shouldn't be odd to anyone who's spent a large amount of time releasing open source. You just end up being used and uncompensated. At best you get a job offer from it. It's really sad to me how many companies benefit from open source (including my own software) without the author ever being compensated. It's hard for me to get motivated to do anything open source anymore because of the feeling that I'm just a gullible idiot in the end. The feeling when I fix issues opened by people at VC-backed companies with millions of dollars is really really nasty. I always feel like such an idiot.
  • briandear 12y ago
    The question is, have you asked for compensation? And, there are plenty of devs at those evil VC-backed companies that give a lot in terms of open source contributions. Those millions of dollars aren't being used to buy private jets; they're paying salaries to devs just like you.
    • dreamdu5t 12y ago
      Are you talking about job offers or are you saying that companies cut checks to open source devs at the behest of requests for some money? Who does this? If you're talking about job offers, you can get jobs without spending off time doing open source. I look over at my co-workers who probably make similar salary as me and they don't do much open source.
  • totony 12y ago
    If you are going to expect being compensated, why are you making free software to start with? Why not make a paid one instead?
• viccuad 12y ago
  Donated 20 euros. It's amazing, in some hours has one from 40.000 to 58.000!
• conductr 12y ago
  Could he not just change the license to require commercial usage by companies with more than $x annual revenue to pay $y in license fees? Could still remain open source and free for majority of applications if x was high enough. Also, creates a system where those reaping the most also pay the most.
• sandGorgon 12y ago
  this is precisely the question I asked here - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8863782 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8863782 This is frustrating - a lot of these projects dont get funded just because of one reason: discoverability. People dont know that these projects need funding. OpenSSH was another. No telling how many others.
• corin_ 12y ago
  Meta-question, ideally aimed at Daniel if you're reading this, but not interesting enough to email you plus wondering what community members think: Normally I'd be against comments like "donated" that add nothing else, and would downvote them for that. But in this case, does seeing lots of other people say they've donated make other readers more likely to donate themselves? If so, does that outweigh the negative of the page filling up with otherwise-pointless comments? I've not downvoted any, but would be interested in any opinions as to whether or not you have/would downvote them and why.
  • dang 12y ago
    I think such comments are fine in this thread. This is an unusual case, and such things don't come up all that often. If it started to get predictable it would be a different story.
  • ersii 12y ago
    I upvoted each person who said they donated or had something else that contributes to the thread. I reason that saying that you donated and perhaps how much, is in fact a good thread contribution. At least this time, I'll take this on a case by case basis. Generally, however - I guess I'm against it since it clutters threads.
• deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
• deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
• yegg 12y ago
  We are collecting nominations for our DuckDuckGo yearly FOSS donations at https://duck.co/forum/thread/11753/foss-donation-nominations-2015-edition https://duck.co/forum/thread/11753/foss-donation-nominations.... The theme this year is mainstream privacy. This seems to fit well and we'd welcome others. Donations will go out soon.
• pcthrowaway 12y ago
  > Like many people who build security software, Koch believes that offering the underlying software code for free is the best way to demonstrate that there are no hidden backdoors in it giving access to spy agencies or others. I'm guessing this is a problem with the journalist misunderstanding the subject, who probably said publishing it as free software (which is not the same as giving it away for free) is the best way to demonstrate that it is secure.
• MysticFear 12y ago
  Don't forgot to donate to ProPublica for covering an unsexy story as well.
  • rtconner 12y ago
    ProPublica is the pinnacle of journalism right now.
• cha_os 12y ago
  Just donated and you should too... ;) Great project!
• pinjiz 12y ago
  Just donated 50€, hopefully the goal of 120.000€ will be exceeded!
  • rnhmjoj 12y ago
    The goal is now exceeded! The progress bar is even overflowing the box.
• the-tesla-809 12y ago
  Is there some hacker group online that specializes on Crypto that can donate time and or money?
• 0xdeadbeefbabe 12y ago
  So, it wasn't a donation, but Snowden that kept this developer going? I'm freaking out a little thinking this implies you can't buy dedication or even good software. Donating is a good thing of course, but it doesn't solve this really disturbing meta-problem.
• redthrow 12y ago
  "He says he's made about $25,000 per year since 2001 — a fraction of what he could earn in private industry" The developer of git-annex assistant was happy when he received $20,000 on Kickstarter and he said with this money he could dedicate his time on this project for a full year. [1] Maybe he could also start a Kickstarter/Indiegogo etc campaign so that he could hire another full-time developer? If enough people find this additional workforce on this project worthwhile, it will be funded. [1] https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/joeyh/git-annex-assistant-like-dropbox-but-with-your-own https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/joeyh/git-annex-assista...
  • quadrangle 12y ago
    Cost of living varies widely. Having no dependents and living in an inexpensive place is great. Obviously, it's better for us to fund people who use the funds as efficiently as possible, but we can't demand that everyone's life circumstances be identical.
• Samumu 12y ago
  Would it help if some highly visible figure like Snowden or Poitras weighed in in some interview? I mean, they probably have a lot on their shoulders already but I cannot see anyone else who would be more motivated and more efficient at this task. I am probably missing something though. They must be somehow aware of the situation already and not consider it a top priority for some reason.
• slowpoison 12y ago
  It's a bit disappointing that G10code[1] https identity verification fails. May be it makes sense given that he's short on $$$$. [1] https://g10code.com/ https://g10code.com/
  • serf 12y ago
    it's just self-signed. All that means is that you are transferring trust to the owner of the site, rather than a CA, to properly deal with his own secure key, and that browsers hate it; but who cares about that part. I trust the GnuPG set of tools, and I have so for quite sometime. On the opposite side of things I have witnessed a ton of CA hacks in recent years...
• deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
• finid 12y ago
  By itself, Google could pay that guy's salary and even hire another dev to help him. Red Hat could do the same. In fact there are any number of companies that can step in and do the right thing.
• jprince 12y ago
  Gave him 5$. Thanks HN for showing this.
• rdl 12y ago
  Wow, they have done a pretty bad job of promoting their donation campaign. I use GPG, I love GPG, and I hadn't heard about it. If they'd done it before 12-31, they could have easily gotten a lot more donations (due to tax year), especially from companies (who IIRC don't need it to be a 501c3). Helping GPG market itself, especially for fundraising, would be a great way for a non-technical privacy advocate type to contribute meaningfully. I think a lot of those people exist.
• anigbrowl 12y ago
  This is a clear example of market failure. When I've been grumpy over the last year over how torrent piracy affects indie cinema (the sector where I work) it's for similar reasons; putting work out there and depending on the goodwill of the public is simply not a viable economic strategy. It's a basic fact of human psychology that people gauge the value of something by what they paid for it, or even what other people would have paid with it and what they therefore feel they're 'getting away with' if they managed to obtain it without paying. In December, he launched a fundraising campaign that has garnered about $43,000 to date — far short of his goal of $137,000 — which would allow him to pay himself a decent salary and hire a full-time developer. Think of what Koch might be able to achieve if he were in a position to direct other people in addition to writing code, or even to write code without the distractions of a precarious financial life. Innovators, whether in arts, technology, or whatever sector, do not like relying on donations or shaking a hat in front of people. It's a shitty, degrading way to work. Nobody becomes better at what they do through constant negative reinforcement of their economic inferiority; and yet the notion of even the most minimal royalty obligation or assertion of a private economic interest is enough to bring out glibertarians* in droves ranting about the selfishness and futility of trying to put a price on something that has zero marginal cost of distribution. Digital assets do have zero marginal cost of distribution, but they have significant fixed costs of creation, and the failure to acknowledge that by disavowing the notion of any property interest in digital goods are undermining the entire market concept in favor of a new variation of serfdom. Saying that society should change and institute a basic income guarantee is all very well, but that's not going to put food on the table for anyone in the near term (except possibly a few enterprising economic raconteurs who are willing to take up the role of court jester). One possible option for Koch would be to crank out the next version of GPG; post a changelog of all the desirable new features/bug fixes etc., and then run a Kickstarter to raise the funds that would persuade him to release it - in other words, to withhold the new version until people put their money where their mouths are. But I'm pretty sure he doesn't want to do that, for 3 reasons: first, many people would just carry on with whatever they currently have, regardless of security liability etc., because what's already available is 'good enough'; two, he'd become the target of the internet hate machine, albeit on a smallish scale; and three, a bunch of indignant people would fork the existing code on Github and offer their innovations for free, a hundred flowers would bloom, and 3 months later 99 of them would have shriveled up and died, while the codebase would have have irreparably fragmented. What we need is some sort of new economic model that does not force innovators to sacrifice their comparative economic advantage (ie their primary technical or artistic skill, on which they should be concentrating their efforts) on guilt marketing, public beggary, or drafting of grant applications.The copyright system could provide such a mechanism, but focusing only on the cases where it's broken or unfair to consumers has led many hackers and digiterati to throw the baby out with the bathwater, making things much harder on small-scale producers whose interestes the system was instituted to protect in the first place. * people who identify as libertarians but who have little experience of structural economic disadvantage in the economic sense of things that are literally good to have
• dredmorbius 12y ago
  The problem of reward for innovation is one that goes back a long ways under the market / capitalist system. The tale of the unrewarded genius is legion, one set of substantiation is presented in Gregory Clark's A Farewell to Alms looking at key inventors of the early Industrial Revolution: John Kay (flying shuttle), James Hargreaves (spinning jenny), Richard Arkwright (spinning frame), Samuel Crompton (spinning mule), Reverend Edmund Cartwright (power loom), Eli Whitney (cotton gin), and Richard Roberts (power loom, machine tools). Of the list, Kay, Hargreaves, and Roberts died in poverty. Crompton and Cartwright were granted substantial payments by acts of Parliament (£5,000 and £10,000 respectively), Whitney made money through arms sales to the U.S. government, and of the lot, only Arkwright earned significant wealth, half a million pounds, after his patents stopped being honored by other manufacturers. Invention and information goods fare poorly in economic systems. Most of us are coloured by the experience of Microsoft from 1980 - 2000 or so, but what is generally not recognized is that Microsoft as a seller of "shrink-wrap" software was exceptionally anomalous. Most other pure-play software firms were nowhere near as profitable as Microsoft. Some technology companies had large revenues, but they were often based on hardware (Sun, HP), professional services (Oracle, Price Waterhouse), or both (IBM). Hardware does well, but has a small fraction of the profit margin of software, and professional services -- brains by the bucketful -- is very difficult to scale. Companies which do well at the latter almost always have a distinctly mafia-like reputation (IBM, EDS, Oracle, PWC, Accenture, etc.). Werner's situation is unfortunate, and I really do hope he finds a way to survive. He's hardly alone, and frankly, the proprietary commercial model has proven highly problematic as well.
• Dowwie 12y ago
  In the meanwhile, a very funny card game about exploding kittens has raised more than 5 Million USD on kickstarter
• whatsgood 12y ago
  GNU is awesome in the way that 'Citizen Kane' is awesome. It is awesome because of what it accomplished given the context in which it was created. The context has changed but GNU, by and large, has not. "Free Software" gave us BSD and Linux, but it is also partially responsible for the privacy issues of Google and Facebook (neither of which would be as competitive if they had to pay licensing fees to Microsoft and Oracle, and they give their services away in exchange for monetizing user data), Heartbleed and similar bugs (these projects are not properly funded for security audits and/or maintenance), and the expectation that one should work for free (if you don't have a job the first thing you do is start working on open source projects to show what you can do). Richard Stallman is arguing for the freedom of software, not people. Unless we change society such that its citizens will be provided for regardless of how they spend their afternoons open source needs a new business model. As software becomes more pervasive finding alternative models will become more urgent. And, it's already very urgent.
  • walterbell 12y ago
    Thought experiment: if there was no GPLv2, only GPLv3, would the same concerns apply? Have you come across promising alternative models? These would need to exhibit some properties of GNU-style free software and some properties of cash-cow commercial software. Thus, technical run-time mechanisms for software composition will play a key role in the new legal framework, just as linking (e.g. GPL vs LGPL) did in the GNU ecosystem. Today we have microservices, containers, etc - which allow composition of software with different licenses, T&C and biz models.
    • whatsgood 12y ago
      just saying, i don't think this guy is going broke for lack of trying.
• ixtli 12y ago
  I donate to the EFF regularly and would really like to see them put some of their money towards this.
• gojomo 12y ago
  The need here is characterized as 'money'. And yes, at a reductionist level, that's the issue. But perhaps what GPG and Koch really need is management and marketing, to build sustaining, recurring support for the project. That would involve getting this sort of attention on a regular basis, and asking for financial support in ever-improving ways. Also, having enough structure that key people aren't tripped up by local tax and legal issues, and the project is well-prepared to survive the surprises and tragedies that eventually challenge every longstanding effort. Sometimes, a precocious developer or development team, or even volunteer advocates in the community, can do this themselves. But also some people have no talent or appetite for self-promotion and support work. The proclivity for these tasks may even be negatively-correlated with the particular technical abilities required in some domains. GPG doesn't just need a fish today. It needs a fisherman... or fisherwoman.
• deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
• colindean 12y ago
  If your company uses the fruits of this project's labor, your company should probably be reserving at last a little honorarium to the people behind it. Give directly, or encourage them use something like Gratipay or Patreon or whatnot.
• vitd 12y ago
  I wonder if his software would be more well known if it were more useable? I've tried using it on a few occasions over the past 10-20 years and have had a very hard time doing so.
• kentf 12y ago
  Let's send him some money directly: https://www.tilt.com/campaigns/werner-koch-deserves-to-get-paid https://www.tilt.com/campaigns/werner-koch-deserves-to-get-p...
  • k2enemy 12y ago
    Why is that better than the GnuPG donate page: https://www.gnupg.org/donate/index.html https://www.gnupg.org/donate/index.html?
    • AstroJetson 12y ago
      It worked well for me when I donated. Looks like this is working, the number is way up. A little advertising goes a long way.
• deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
  • christop 12y ago
    Wow, and that was fast. Is there some sort of secret Silicon Valley startup hotline where these deals get set up?
• whyleym 12y ago
  Just announced - "Stripe and Facebook are going to sponsor @gnupg development with $50k/year each." - https://twitter.com/stripe/status/563449352635432960 https://twitter.com/stripe/status/563449352635432960
• jtwebman 12y ago
  I am sure if he quit someone would pick it up.
• seizethecheese 12y ago
  Apparently Stripe and Facebook just stepped in to pledge $50K/year each. https://twitter.com/stripe/status/563449352635432960 https://twitter.com/stripe/status/563449352635432960
  • teamhappy 12y ago
    Never forget that you made that happen.
    • kluliss 12y ago
      Who?
      • bramgg 12y ago
        Possibly everyone who upvoted this post or shared it one way or another.
        • eru 12y ago
          Slacktivism?
          • rmc 12y ago
            But if it gets results....
  • tptacek 12y ago
    And the Linux Foundation kicked in $60K!
    • bndr 12y ago
      Source: https://twitter.com/gnupg/status/563456662024228865 https://twitter.com/gnupg/status/563456662024228865
      • 12y ago
• GolfyMcG 12y ago
  Facebook and Stripe are stepping up: https://twitter.com/stripe/status/563449352635432960 https://twitter.com/stripe/status/563449352635432960
• bndr 12y ago
  I would like to repost a comment from reddit[1] that makes some good points: "That title is pretty laughable. Enterprise E-Mail Encryption solutions do NOT use gnupg, and most enterprise customers do not even use openpgp, they use X.509/SMIME. I know the world top 10 server side enterprise e-mail encryption solutions and the majority uses java with either bouncycastle or ajak encryption, for PGP or openssl/bouncycastle for SMIME. There are some solutions that use gnupg but those are very small and again - most people do not use openpgp in the business world. Mostly automotive uses it like Porsche, VW etc. for encrypting e-mail traffic. Gnupg is mostly used for e-mail by your skilled engineers in private or while communicating with kernel developers etc. Either by using enigmail/mutt/command line whatever. Nothing based on e-mail would "break" if gnupg went missing. Now lets get back to Mr. Koch - gnupg was sponsored by the German Government - in all these years - Mr. Koch tried to build a consulting company/enterprise solution out of it - but he failed because there were already existing solutions that were far better than anything he could come up with. Moreover asking Mr. Koch to fix specific bugs in gnupg which was as i said sponsored resulted in simply "pay me XXX amount or i wont do it" - thats how Mr. Koch worked. Ask any code auditor/reviewer worth his salt and he will tell you gnupg is a mess, it is worse than openssl in most cases - why ? Ask Mr. Koch. I just want to remind everyone carefully judge, before thinking about donating to Mr. Koch or his company. I already noticed he received well over 50k today just because of this false article. This guy got funding multiple times from the german government for implementing and maintaing gnupg. This was never a fulltime job - adding patches and a few features is what any open source developer does in his free time. Mr. Koch tried to build a business upon this government funded software, and it failed. He already had multiple fundraisers in his careers to keep his company going. Does he deserve your money ? It is not like gnupg would be dead without him - he is not the only one doing anything - there are many developers in the community who are doing their share too. Arent there other things more deserving of funding than the failed economical existence of one guy ? An open source developer that wants to contribute free software does not need your money to survive! Did Mr. Richard Stallman or Linus Torvalds ever beg people for money because they cant buy their next meal ? Did the BSD Foundation plea to you they cant make days end ? No - they never did - and they still were able to produce free open source software. Mr. Koch does not deserve your money, if anything successors of him should receive funding if they need to - but not to survive - because they most likely got a real job already and doing this in their free time. " [1] http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/2uw2gt/the_worlds_email_encryption_software_relies_on/coc9qxv http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/2uw2gt/the_worl...
• dhfromkorea 12y ago
  This is an epitome that corresponds to Peter Thiel's thesis statement: contribution to a society and (financial) reward are independent variables.
• carrotleads 12y ago
  Never tell people / managers that you love your Job. That's one foolproof way for people to expect you to do it for free or close to it. Your payment comes in the form of praise. I think that was the mistake made here. A mistake made by many artists.
• nathan-muir 12y ago
  This feels like "WorldVision" for programmers. The wealthy pouring support on the forgotten, decrying the unjust conditions, only to forget about them and return to their normal lives. Unlike the poor children of the world - Koch's decisions are wholly responsible for his current predicament. The "market" doesn't care about individuals like Koch, and he chose to continue despite his efforts not being reciprocated/acknowledged. I'd like to say that Koch should have abandoned the project, and if the market saw that maintenance/development of GPG was important, it would have happened. However, it's not a perfect world - and there are probably plenty of pieces of critical software installed on our systems that are no longer maintained. Would GPG have become one of these unmaintained codebases had Koch acted in his own self interest? Or, would have another organisation/individual funded someone else to maintain and develop it?
• yeukhon 12y ago
  So why not hire the guy to work on this as a full time employee? Stripe / Facebook / Google or even Mozilla should have the money to hire him as full time and only work on GnuPG.
• gordon_freeman 12y ago
  when I first saw this post on HN, the donation was around 60% of the goal. Just now I see it exceeded 120000 € of the goal. I bet HN readers donated a good amount today after reading the top-trending news. Great activism!
• JoachimS 12y ago
  The funding target has now been met!
• guiambros 12y ago
  This is amazing news. Glad to see companies that benefit so much from free software helping to pay it forward. Update, Feb. 5, 2015, 8:10 p.m.: After this article appeared, Werner Koch informed us that last week he was awarded a one-time grant of $60,000 from Linux Foundation's Core Infrastructure Initiative. Werner told us he only received permission to disclose it after our article published. Meanwhile, since our story was posted, donations flooded Werner's website donation page and he reached his funding goal of $137,000. In addition, Facebook and the online payment processor Stripe each pledged to donate $50,000 a year to Koch’s project.
• cs702 12y ago
  "Update, Feb. 5, 2015, 8:10 p.m.: After this article appeared, Werner Koch informed us that last week he was awarded a one-time grant of $60,000 from Linux Foundation's Core Infrastructure Initiative. Werner told us he only received permission to disclose it after our article published. Meanwhile, since our story was posted, donations flooded Werner's website donation page and he reached his funding goal of $137,000. In addition, Facebook and the online payment processor Stripe each pledged to donate $50,000 a year to Koch’s project." The problem, in other words, was that lots of people like me, who depend everyday on gpg and are thankful for it, would have supported it over all these years if only we had known that its maintainer was barely scraping by on $25K a year. Kudos to Pro Publica for bringing this to everyone's attention.
• patronagezero 12y ago
  No worries, I'm sure everyone contributes more to their respective governments to break encryption than they'll every send to anyone seeking to protect it. Send more money to this guy if you want to feel better about your shitty (respective) country or self. Better yet, just donate to the EFF like a uselessly trendy dweeb. Being a decent citizen isn't about standing up for what's right or wrong (that makes you a terrorist), instead it's about sending money to your respective, government-approved cause.
• mavsman 12y ago
  Unbelievable that this article gets this guy a paycheck. He deserves it but it's still amazing. We live in the future.
• D4AHNGM 12y ago
  I noticed the rather pitifully empty donation bar last week, and made a mental node to chip in a little bit as soon as I could. Donated €5 today, and visited the website again just now and the donation bar is more than full, which is just incredible. Werner's engagement on the mailing lists is awesome enough, let alone the software he writes. Genuinely glad for the guy that he's getting some of the financial support he needs.
• dchichkov 12y ago
  "Stallman urged the crowd to write their own version of PGP. 'We can't export it, but if you write it, we can import it,' he said." "Inspired, Koch decided to try. 'I figured I can do it,' he recalled." "Koch's software was a hit even though it only ran on the Unix operating system. It was free, the underlying software code was open for developers to inspect and improve, and it wasn't subject to U.S. export restrictions." Brilliant :)
• harkyns_castle 12y ago
  Hopefully a sign of things to come. Way prefer to give my cash to someone that dilligently works away out of the public eye, but also gets some reward when its recognized. My cynical side says someone will pop out soon and say its compromised and he's had an NSL, but that part of me is killing me so I choose to hope not.
• florianfunke 12y ago
  Here are Felix ("fefe") von Leitner's comments http://translate.google.com/translate?js=n&sl=de&tl=en&u=http://blog.fefe.de/?q=gnupg http://translate.google.com/translate?js=n&sl=de&tl=en&u=htt... Not that I would share his views, but he is a relatively well known German security expert and free software activist (dietlibc). He knows GnuPG pretty well and basically says: Werner, you don't deserve our donations, stop crying, get a day job and maintain GnuPG in your spare time.
  • deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
• frevd 12y ago
  The whole commercial industry is relying on open-source components, arbitraging what should cost money in the first place to build a business, then assuming that people do it for the fun primarily (which is not completely untrue), maintenance though costs money, but to give edits back should be the role of the earning community, not the original founder. Licensing might help here, just too many people are offering their works for free (read there will always be somebody with a free alternative). It's kinda weird to expect something else and proclaim free software..
• drodgers 12y ago
  "Mihai'); DROP TABLE Donors" (from the donors page) is an asshole.
• olla 12y ago
  I think we need a change in the way we look at open source software. It must not necessarily be free of charge. The real benefits of open source are often something other than being free of charge, like in this case. Maybe we need a new licence allowing charge for commercial use and giving benefits or discounts on the amount of contribution made to the project?
• keyle 12y ago
  big shout to the journalist that actually reported the issue instead of vaporware shenanigans. @JuliaAngwin
• theklub 12y ago
  Its ok, he got like 200k in 24 hours so he's good now.
• lajarre 12y ago
  No one pointing to the fact that GPG has major issues like no perfect forward secrecy? Are we celebrating that big-brother money is funding a (out)dated technology??
• madhudj 12y ago
  Where can I see the list of all such Softwares (the essential and free) and the people behind them? Is there a single place where the following details can be found? Program Name, Company / Group Name, Description of the software, Link to their website, Yearly Budget (Required), Funded so far (out of the total yearly budget), How many people in the team?, Options to donate I feel that the real problem is that the folks behind these amazing softwares are either too busy / too nice / too shy (for philosophical reasons) to promote, organize, gather funds? And in the busy world, their very existence is forgotten by the rest of us. If there are none like this, why not we build one and I would like to start it so others can join in later. To help these guys around the year and not just when we get to see an blog post like this one. Any thoughts / comments ?
• microcolonel 12y ago
  I've donated to the project in the past, I wasn't aware of just how far in the hole he was until today. Also, I just cloned the repository and it's a bit of a mess, if anything I'm ashamed that I haven't been doing anything about it directly.