The state of open source security

If there’s a poster child for the challenges facing open source security, it may be Werner Koch, the German developer who wrote and for the last 18 years has toiled to maintain Gnu Privacy Guard (GnuPG), a pillar of the open source software ecosystem.

Since its first production release in 1999, GnuPG has become one of the most widely used open source security tools in the world, protecting the email communication of everyone from government officials to Edward Snowden.

Yet Koch found himself struggling to make ends meet in recent years. The estimated $25,000 he collected on average in annual donations since 2001 weren’t enough to support his efforts. As reported by Pro Publica, the 53-year-old was close to throwing in the towel on GnuPG when Edward Snowden’s NSA revelations shocked the world, convincing Koch to soldier on. “I’m too idealistic,” he said.

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