German Government donates 250,000 DM to GNU Privacy Guard

One of the many ACs wrote in with the news that the German government is donating 250,000 marks (that's about 82,500, or $132,000) to the GNU Privacy Guard project. The article is in German, but the ever reliable Babelfish comes to the rescue.

Re:Wow....

I would never have expected to say that this is coming from the German government of all places (history aside and all, the modern German government seems to often have it's hands full controlling it's Neo-Nazi and extremist group problem,

Hey, hey, I think this is overstressed in your media. Neo-nazi and extermist problems take up much more space in news coverage about Germany than it actually should. For one part, it's because foreign countries are extra sensitive for anything right-wing that comes from Germany (for good, historical, reasons). Besides, this extremist thing is one of the few things about German that gives the reader a kind of a thrill which, sadly, often is a reason for news to be reported.
If you had said that the German government has more important things to care about than Open Source projects because the unemployment is so unacceptably high and gigantic amounts of money go the the absolutely wrong places, I would have agreed.

If you don't believe me, please remember the Neo-Nazi and extremist problems the U.S. have (Oklahoma bombing, KKK, militia groups, Jewish kindergarten shooting...). I'm not saying Neo-Nazis are no problem in Germany, but I don't think they are a bigger problem than in many other countries -- people just watch closer when it comes to Germany.

Re:If only

Sometimes I wish taxpayers had the right to tell the government to stop wasting their money.
The irony of this statement floored me, and I hope you were being sarcastic. Ideally, the government _is_ the taxpayers, and we have every right to do so. The problem is that most people in the US see the political continuum as running between Republican and Democrat. Well, there is only a difference of degrees between the two. Both have their pet projects. Since voters think they have to decide between the two, the only option is which buzzword-project-of-the-month your money will be wasted on next. _Not_ wasting the money is simply out of the question, to the politicians. It's too ludicrous for words.

A non-Babelfish translation

Here's my attempt at a translation. Sorry, English is not my first language.



German government fosters open source

The open source project "GNU privacy guard" (GPG) led by the German developer Werner Koch shall receive a financial aid of 250,000 DM by the German Ministry for Enonomy and Science (BMWi) this year. More funds and similar actions shall follow next year. The German government wants to tap the potential of open source development within the area of security related software and hopes to set a signal effect by supporting open source.

The second focus shall be supporting open source projects within security related software projects that the BMWi hope to help increase transparency and reliability of future security products. The core question, according to Ulrich Sandl of the BMWi, is how to increase the transparency of security technology: "It is almost impossible for small to medium businesses today to judge the actual security value of an encryption product."

An important step shall be the support for GPG. "The concept of GPG might help to create a tool that can be used as public domain software without any restrictions for all members of a society - the state, businesses and private users alike can get free access for no charge," says Hubertus Soquat, referent for IT security at the BMWi.

The financial aid for GPG shall mainly be used to create comfortable user interfaces for GPG and to port the tool for various operating systems, various mail clients etc.


Original German article by Stefan Krempl.

------------------

quick translation

(disclaimer: i'm dutch, not german)

Before the end of the year, the open source project GNU privacy guard (GPG), coordinated by the programmer Werner Koch from Dusseldorf, will receive a financial injection of DM 250,000 from the federal department of economy and technology. With this, the federal government wants to unlock the potential of open source for privacy and hopes to make a statement with the gift.
--

The Wizards Of OS

This summer there has been the conference Wizards of OS [mikro.org] in Berlin. One day before that conference there has been an expert hearing of the German Minstry of Commerce (BMWi) about Open Source. The meeting has been initiated by Ulrich Sandl [heise.de] (BMWi), who was unable to attend in person due to an accident.

They managed to get into contact with german developers of the KDE Team, the Apache Team, the Linux Kernel, the Mutt mailer, the GPG and OpenPGP projects and other key Open Source projects. Also attending were CEOs or key people from companies which were actually earning money with Open Source based business models. After that meeting, there has been a fruitful discussion between multiple supporters of the Open Source Scene in Germany and the BMWi.

The BMWi was particularly interested into ideas on how to create a supporting infrastructure for Open Source development without destroying the current structures and without creating a culture shock or the impression of a governmental takeover of Open Source development. They also learned first time about the dangers of Software Patents and were quite shocked to learn that Software Patents were seen as an obstacle, and not as a good thing by the Open Source devlopment scene.

The donation to the GPG project is the first in a number of actions in a governmental plan which are the direct or indirect result of this meeting. Exspect further investment and support for Open Source projects from the German Government as well as the donation of ressources and services where needed.
© Copyright 1999 Kristian Köhntopp

The mitts are off...

This is GREAT news. It does, however put the German government on a direct collision course with the United States, which seems determined to create a worldwide Police State. Now that the Germans and other European countries are openly and directly exploiting the "loophole" in Wassenaar (sp?) that allows for strong PD crypto, the US Gov't will be furious.

Expect a lot of backroom "diplomacy" (bribes and various kinds of strongarming) to be used by the United States against Europoean governments to tighten up Wassenaar now.

Re:I'm gonna buy some German beer today!

Janet Reno already wrote to the german government. You can find the letter on the Heise/Telepolis website [heise.de]. They have a commentary article [heise.de] as well as the original letter [heise.de]. Telepolis' writer Christiane Schulzki-Haddouti covers the whole Echelon and ENFOPOL [heise.de] (english URL [heise.de]) thingy in a special Telepolis section. If you do not read German, this woman is a single, very good reason to do so.
© Copyright 1999 Kristian Köhntopp

This is VERY significant...

Not just in terms of GPG support, but in terms of online privacy. If some of the rough translations posted here are correct, then this money is earmarked for GPG, but further funds will go towards other security & encryption software.

My guess is that, by the end of next year, we could see FreeSWAN, GPG, OpenSSH and OpenSSL all getting similar cash injections.

This can only help people, and the computer industry in particular, and is likely to deal a severe blow to things like the Wassenar Agreement and the US Government's attempts to restrain encryption technology.

why can't OUR government be like that ;-)

Here in the US our government is trying as hard as it can to keep encryption out of common use and especially strong encryption.

And in Germany, the government is DONATING MONEY to an open effort working on strong encryption.

That makes a statement all right. I hope (because I am naieve) that our government will take note.

--
grappler