GPG 1.4.x, 2.x, ECC, and portability

[Werner Koch]

On Mon, 14 May 2012 18:05, avi.wiki at gmail.com said:
> In one of the recent, longer, threads, it was my understanding
> that Werner said that the 1.4.x branch of GnuPG will not be
> updated to have ECC capabilities, and may eventually be "put
> into runoff" as it were. Werner, may I request that you confirm
> or refute that?

Right, that is the current plan.  Maintaining two stable branches is
extremely time and thus cost intensive.  Given that it is hard to find
any financial funding for our work, we need to spend our time more
effective.  Consider that GnuPG-2 is more than 10 years old and 1.4 only
4 years older.  I consider 2.0 more matured than 1.4.

> Assuming that is the case, it means those of us using 1.4.x need
> to move to 2.x to use ECC. In and of itself that shouldn't be an

We try to make it as easy as possible.  In 2.1 there is even a way to
provide a passphrase to gpg-agent - without a need for Pinentry.


> issue. What concerns me is that, and perhaps this is due solely
> to ignorance, it appears to me that GnuPG 2.0 for Windows cannot
> be installed in a solely portable fashion the way that 1.4.12
> can. I do not wish to get into the debate about the benefits of

With gpgconf it is even easier to do this with 2.x.  There is no need
for a registry key for example.  Obviously you need to set GNUPGHOME if
you don't want to use the default home directory.

> any possibility that someone other than Werner would consider
> folding the code into 1.4.x? I am not a programmer by a long

The major problem is not about writing the code in the first place, but
to maintain it for the next couple of years if not decades.


Salam-Shalom,

   Werner

-- 
Die Gedanken sind frei.  Ausnahmen regelt ein Bundesgesetz.