Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah but he has 6 developers working on it now (including himself).
Why does the project need 6 developers?
Gnu Privacy Guard relies on one underfunded person (2015)
41–50 of 72 posts
Re: Gnu Privacy Guard relies on one underfunded person (2015)
#42Misleading title. After the publication of this article that 1 Guy got a buncha money.
That money pays for far more than Werner's salary:
Re: Gnu Privacy Guard relies on one underfunded person (2015)
#43The 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.
The broad altruism in tech that has allowed this situation, and which still underfunds the projects' modest needs? Yes, astonishing generosity.
It's almost like the "I got mine, buzz off" attitude is prevalent in not just the cartoon caricatures of but is prevalent in society as a whole.
Re: Gnu Privacy Guard relies on one underfunded person (2015)
#44It 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 ve…
Why not let projects ask for government funding? Perhaps a specialized agency could help with this.
I'd start with NSF or NIST.
Re: Gnu Privacy Guard relies on one underfunded person (2015)
#45Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not 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.
> 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…
Kudos to Facebook and Stripe for stepping up. Either these individuals are funded or some company comes along and acquires them and they lose their independence.
We need to urgently find a sustainable way for individuals to support open source developers or accountability and relationship with end users will continue to diminish.
There must also be ways to gently encourage successful startups to contribute as now it seems they use a whole bunch of open source software and simply forget about it once successful, which is not a sutainable model.
Re: Gnu Privacy Guard relies on one underfunded person (2015)
#46Are there any other projects of such nature?
Not 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.
Re: Gnu Privacy Guard relies on one underfunded person (2015)
#47Earlier quoted context omitted.
I 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.
Then maybe the distros should find a way to fund things they rely on?
Some companies rely on distros. Do these companies make sure to fund the distributions?
Re: Gnu Privacy Guard relies on one underfunded person (2015)
#48Isn't the obvious answer here that he creates a company that offers "professional level" support contracts, ala Red Hat, Sendmail, ...
Re: Gnu Privacy Guard relies on one underfunded person (2015)
#49The 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.
From the article, we get "while the U.S. spends more than $50 billion per year on spying and intelligence, pennies go to Internet security".
It is wild to me that US intelligence is sincerely scared of their sources "going dark". I've never gotten over just how asymmetric the conflict is, and how much first-class privacy software gets written for little or no money.