Phil Zimmermann interview

[Charly Avital]

It's interesting to read the whole interview (as it shows in the URL).

On one side, PRZ has remained the same PRZ who developed PGP, posted 
it for everyone to use, got in serious trouble with the US 
authorities, etc. Those assets belong to him, forever.

On the other side, the real world doesn't live on principles only; 
there are balance sheets, bank balances, in short - money. PRZ, like 
anyone else, has to make a living.

I would have expected PRZ to show more understanding of the world of 
Free Software, though. "Hobby-programming conducted on week-ends" 
comes out as a cheap shot. It will pass.


Charly


At 2:19 PM +0200 6/8/03, pplf wrote:
>For info, Phil Zimmermann has done an interview here :
>http://grep.law.harvard.edu/article.pl?sid=03/06/06/1441247&mode=nested
>
>But what he says about the GNU GPL encryption softwares can be
>understood by the professional users like a critic against GnuPG... :-(
>
>Quotation :
>
>" PRZ - I am familiar with the GNU GPL and the BSD license.
>
>Q - Could they have been an alternative for PGP instead of making it
>freeware?
>
>PRZ - There is a place for products under different licenses. There is a
>place for products under the GNU GPL, also cryptographic products.
>However, GNU GPL is not enough for everyone's needs. Some software needs
>to be sold for profit. Some software can not depend on hobby-programming
>conducted on weekends and other spare-time by programmers having other
>day-jobs. There is a place for that. But PGP needs more focused
>development than that. "