How to Save PGP

Tomcat666 sends in: "The Register got some excerpts from an interview with Phil Zimmerman. He talks about how it might be possible to save PGP (Network Associates couldn't sell it, and will stop its development), OpenPGP and the future (industry-backed OpenPGP?)." A follow-up to our story yesterday about Network Associates mothballing PGP.

Comments

Why save PGP?

[crush]

specifically what does it add over GPG? Would it not be better for GPG if PGP were to die?

I actually have no objections to it being presevered and developed, especially if it were Free Software, what I'm asking for is reasons for it to be preseved from the point of view of Free Software advocates.

Sorry, I don't believe in paying for software.

[$beirdo]

Sorry, I don't believe in paying for software. Or charging for it. Ever.

Re:I don't get it... (a bit of nitpickery)

[HiThere]

It's like saying if Microsoft or Netscape decided to stop relasing browsers, then the entire WWW is doomed, when there's still Konquerer, Opera, Mozilla, and the whole W3C standards body, etc...

This was a lot better before you included the W3C. Many of their recent activities have been ... at best of dubious value. They set the standards on which the web was built, but in the last year they seem to have shifted their purpose. The acceptance of patented "standards", e.g., is totally unacceptable. A patent is a grant of control over an expression of an idea, and increasingly over the idea itself. So the recent W3C activity is a total denial of publically accessible standards, to the extent that I won't use the word to describe their proposals. It is as if PGP (well, Network Associates) had first ensured that nobody else could create any implementation of a secure protocol, and THEN withdrew their package.

If you delete the reference to the W3C, then your point is quite valid.

Re:Let's create a /. Corporation

[mwalker]

If /. changes it's subscribtion pay pal account instead to be a funding house to purchase PGP, each user could donate 25 dollars

That's a great idea. However, the economics don't hold up in the face of current customer research. Right now the max "penetration rate" for subsciptions is hovering at about 20%, best case. In short, 80% of the people who read Slashdot are freeloaders who won't even pay to read their favorite web site. Couple that with the unavailability of a flat rate subsciption (despite overwhelming market preference for flat rate) and you've got a virtually nil chance of success. What makes you think Slashdot readers are going to pay for software of all things?