The GnuPG project has successfully completed a fundraising campaign.

Werner Koch

Werner Koch, the permanent author and manager of the GNU Privacy Guard (GPG) project to encrypt and digitally sign information (letters, files, etc.), has successfully received funding to continue working. In addition to crowdfunding, which brought him $ 150,000, he received $ 60,000 from the Linux Foundation and annual grants from Facebook and Stripe for $ 50,000.

The project began in 1997, when Koch got to a lecture to the famous popularizer of open source software Richard Stallman. Koch took to heart the proposal made by everyone, to write an analogue of the PGP program, and in a few months in his spare time he created a GPG. The project became popular first in the Unix environment, and then spread to other operating systems.

In 1999 and in 2005, Koch received grants from the German government (Germany is famous for its love of privacy - for example, they banned the Google Street View project in their country). However, by 2010 the grants ran out. By 2013, Koch was already desperate and wanted to stop working on the project - but at that moment the world was shocked by the history of Snowden, and Koch realized that this project could not be abandoned.
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He collected about 18,000 euros in crowdfunding, but this money was not long enough - except for two programmers working with him on the project, he still needs to feed his housewife and child. In December 2014, he launched the second campaign, and thanks to press coverage, it ended more than successfully . Inspired by his success, Koch, nevertheless, asked everyone not to forget about the existence of other useful projects in the network that ensure the freedom and privacy of citizens - and they also need support.