GnuPG is a piece of cryptographic software embedded in numerous online solutions in the world, including email clients, and it's an indispensable part of our online experience. That also means that it's underfunded and maintained by a single guy who is ready to give up. Fortunately, the online community has responded to his plea and that reaction was amazing.

An article on propublica.org revealed that Werner Koch, the developer who made Gnu Privacy Guard almost two decades ago and who is still maintaining the software, is having financial difficulties and he's seriously considering dropping the project. It's hard to imagine hwo such an important project would fail to get the necessary attention, but it's not without precedent.

Some might remember that the same thing happened with the OpenSSL project, which was revealed to be underfunded and understaffed. That all happened after a major vulnerability was discovered in OpenSSL and it got the name Heartbleed. Fortunately, nothing of that sort has been identified in GnuPG, but the fact that the developer of this important piece of software is struggling to make ends meet is really worrying.

Online community to the rescue

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 (€52,000) from the Linux Foundation's Core Infrastructure Initiative. Also, the community donated over $150,000 (130,000), 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.