Gnupg, Gpa, the German Government and Free Software for Secure Email

[Bernhard Reiter]

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	Gnupg, gpa, the German Government and Free Software for secure E-Mail

Pre-announcement 16.8.2001=20

A group of developers and their companies are trying to=20
get funding for a project about email-encryption with Free Software.

The German Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology (BMWi)=20
funded a development to improve gnupg and related software last year.
An early pressrelease can still be found at:=20
http://www.gnupg.de/presse.en.html=20
More explainations are on the German pages www.gnupg.de.

The project has done good work and was finished in early 2001.
Still email encryption is not as widely used and a lot remains to be done.
So we want to get another project started to reach the breakthrough
for e-mail encryption.

Participants are g10code, Alcove and Intevation with help of
Linuxland and G-N-U GmbH. Projectcoordination will be done
by Bernhard Reiter and Jan-Oliver Wagner from Intevation.

Status: We are in contact with the BMWi to find out if, how
	and how much funding of the project will be possible.
	Working title of the project to be funded is: Fruits2
	an abbreviation for "Free Software and IT-Security, Phase 2".

Our current plans for the project
	+ Improve the communication structures to make it
	easier for users and developers to participate.

	+ set up a meta project which is independent of funding
	and the fruits2 project. Working title: GPA for=20
	GNU Privacy Assistance.

	(We will shanghai the name of the gpa application abbreviation=20
	and the gpa-dev mailing list for this for now. 8-) )

	+ maintain current software and connect components and apps.
	Focus will probably be on gpgme and MUAs.

	+ progress development on technical an conceptual basis.

We want to collaborate with further developers, users and other
companies, because everybody will benefit from the project.
Possible collaboration:

	+ reference installations / customers
	+ support offers
	+ development, tests
	+ connection to and new development of related software components.

We want to do the fruits2 project in an transparent manner
in the best traditions of Free Software.

Organisational issues about the project and the technical overview
will be openly discussed on the following mailinglists.
Other technical issues probably have better places.

   German:
        projekt@gnupg.de
        http://lists.gnupg.org/mailman/listinfo/projekt

   English:
        gpa-dev@gnupg.org
        http://lists.gnupg.org/mailman/listinfo/gpa-dev

We inform and listen through these channels
and need your feedback and opinions.


	Bernhard	<bernhard@intevation.de>
--=20
Professional Service around Free Software                (intevation.net) =
=20
The FreeGIS Project                                         (freegis.org)
Association for a Free Informational Infrastructure            (ffii.org)
FSF Europe                                            	  (fsfeurope.org)

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