GPG Programmer Werner Koch Is Running Out of Money

New submitter jasonridesabike writes "ProPublica reports that Werner Koch, the man behind GPG, is in financial straits: "The man who built the free email encryption software used by whistleblower Edward Snowden, as well as hundreds of thousands of journalists, dissidents and security-minded people around the world, is running out of money to keep his project alive. Werner Koch wrote the software, known as Gnu Privacy Guard, in 1997, and since then has been almost single-handedly keeping it alive with patches and updates from his home in Erkrath, Germany. Now 53, he is running out of money and patience with being underfunded." (You can donate to the project here..)

Comments

Re:Uhhhh

[CRC'99]

I hate to say it - but most people who do OSS work for the masses don't get paid for it.

I do packaging for Xen used from hobby users through to Disney - yet I get about $400AUD per year in donations. I also have to go buy my own test hardware (I need UEFI kit atm!).

I understand exactly what Werner means and the challenges faced - but I too don't see a solution for this. OSS has been linked for too long as a 'free solution' - which means nobody puts a currency value on the software and services that are made available to the world. I think its the mental relationship of OSS being 'free' causes it. Nobody blinks an eye to pay $100 for a Windows license - yet go for a $10 donation to an OSS project and people lose their minds...