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GnuPG Gets Back On Track With Funding

Posted by Soulskill on from the pulling-together dept.

jones_supa writes: Soon after the poor state of the GnuPG was unveiled, the online community has rallied to help Werner Koch. He wanted to hire a full-time programmer to work on the project alongside him and to ensure that he's not living on the brink of bankruptcy all the time. Immediately after the article was published, it was revealed that he got a one-time grant of $60,000 from the Linux Foundation's Core Infrastructure Initiative. Also, the community donated over $150,000, and Facebook and Stripe have each pledged to provide $50,000 per year. All in all, it looks like Werner Koch won't be worried about funding for quite some time. The problem remains: it's very likely that other projects just as important as this one are probably facing the same kind of issues, but it would be nice to hear about them before they get in trouble, and not after.

3 of 51 comments (clear)

  1. Core Infrastructure Initiative by millert · · Score: 5, Informative

    This is exactly the kind of thing Core Infrastructure Initiative is meant to help with and I'm happy to see it being used for gpg. Anyone with an underfunded Open Source project that is in wide use can apply for a grant from http://www.linuxfoundation.org.... There's no need to wait until you are in dire straits.

  2. The GNU project needs money! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

    The developers who work on the heart of the operating system are badly funded and its getting worse.

    Please consider donating:

    https://my.fsf.org/donate/

    * The FSF "sponsors" the project, but doesn't have the resources to properly fund it. You can help change that indirectly by donating to the FSF. There are many GNU pieces that need more attention and one of the reasons that many projects are in poor shape is because people are letting politics get in the way.

  3. XFCE anyone? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    The problem remains: it's very likely that other projects just as important as this one are probably facing the same kind of issues, but it would be nice to hear about them before they get in trouble, and not after.

    I was thinking if XFCE could use some help? A lot of people like it, but the project seems to be greatly underresourced and the development is very slow. It seems that they have a Bountysource page set up already.