Interoperability

[Johan Wevers]

Leigh S. Jones, KR6X wrote:

> GnuPG is poised to dominate the field, and its developers
> should consider the implications of creating the best possible
> tool rather than the most compatible one.  The "idea" patent
> has already set PGP and GnuPG widely apart from the
> standpoint of interoperability,

Not really. Most people who like to remain fully compatible with pgp 2
don't care about that patent. Personally, I use IDEA for both personal
and buisiness usage - let the patent holders sue me if they like:
everyone on this list knows chances on that happening are negligible.
That might not be the official Gnu point of view, but I don't care.

> GnuPG with capabilities that extend its interoperability with
> existing standards such as SHA-256 makes sense from the
> point of view of interoperability, even if there is no support for
> these standards in PGP7.1.

Indeed. Remaining fully compatible with the windows-only versions is not
something I really care about, as long as I'm able to send messages that
can be decrypted and verified with them to people who are confined to
windows when I want to.

-- 
ir. J.C.A. Wevers         //  Physics and science fiction site:
johanw@vulcan.xs4all.nl   //  http://www.xs4all.nl/~johanw/index.html
PGP/GPG public keys at http://www.xs4all.nl/~johanw/pgpkeys.html