![]() Many people wondered how dare we not respond to their questions on a Saturday and Sunday. What was probably most disappointing was the fact that even long time users didn't afford us the benefit of the doubt, but immediately started joining in. I personally couldn't believe the vitriol and hateful messages directed our way. We were accused of pushing this trial on our users without any prior notice. 10 years of developing GPG Suite and releasing it for freeĪfter almost 10 years of providing GPG Suite with great support, open source and for free, people called GPG Suite ransomware now. Only to wake up to a massive shit storm the next day. So we pushed the metaphorical release button and exhausted but very happy went to bed. To make sure that no one would think they could no longer access their encrypted emails after the trial period was over, we also included the details that decryption would still work, but signing/encrypting and verifying emails would require the GPG Mail Support plan. To make sure that no one would be caught off guard, we decided to again mention in the release notes of 2018.4 that with the installation of this release, a trial version of GPG Mail 3 would be installed which could be used for 30 days and that continued use after that period, would require the purchase of the GPG Mail Support Plan. Reading your encrypted emails remains free Since the trial could be used for another 30 days, we also didn't think our users would mind the "missing information" on our website, as they had enough time to decide and there was enough time for us to add all the necessary details after the weekend. We didn't think that the fact, that we will charge a fee for GPG Mail would be the most important information, since we had mentioned that repeatedly before. So by the time we were about to release GPG Suite 2018.4 on Saturday morning, we thought that our users would already be aware of the upcoming change. ![]() In order to make sure that everyone of our existing users was informed, we included the information about the upcoming change in regards to GPG Mail 3 in the release notes of a few more releases of GPG Suite and the announcements on our website. We also mentioned that GPG Suite as well as GPG Mail would continue to be released under an Open Source license. Our GPG Suite version released at the same time included the first beta of GPG Mail 3 compatible with macOS High Sierra. Our annocunement stated that with the release of GPG Mail 3, our mail plugin would no longer be free as in "free beer". One year ago we announced our plans to start charging a fee for GPG Mail We released a new website as well, with only the most important information, since we were exhausted and were already prepared to add the missing pages after the weekend. It was of utmost importance to get the release out at least a few days before macOS Mojave's release, so our users would be notified and could install it in time. So at that point we were very very excited about sharing the good news. In almost 10 years working on GPG Suite we had never managed to accomplish that before. ![]() What has really happened?Īt 5am on Saturday morning, 09/22, Vienna time, we were finally ready to launch the release of GPG Suite 2018.4, which for the first time, would contain a stable release of GPG Mail for macOS Mojave prior to Apple's release. If you are interested in what has and has not happened, we would love if you kept reading. GPG Suite is still being released under an Open Source license, the full release code can be found on our website and on GitHub. Most of your questions should be answered in the FAQ now, and the page for the GPG Mail Support Plan. Our most important goal with the release of GPG Suite 2018.4 was to have GPG Mail ready before macOS Mojave was released to guarantee uninterrupted access to encrypted emails for our users who rely on GPG Mail on a daily basis. ![]() We have since taken the necessary steps to update our site with all the missing information and made sure that the release notes are abundandly clear now. Instead of focusing what might be of most interest to our existing users, we focused on what was most important for us – being able to provide a release with support for macOS Mojave from day one. That the stable version would require a support plan for continued use, as we had hinted at about 9 month and that the version of GPG Mail 3 which was going to be installed would be a 30 day trial. In the release notes we should have focused on re-emphasizing that GPG Mail 3 has now exited the beta phase. It was never our intention to deceive or trick anyone of you. We sincerely apologize for all the confusion surrounding this release.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |