Hi David, That's really great news! Regular releases and FIPS are certainly welcome. From our side, we will gladly contribute more transport-related code in the future, and of course we are adding our donation to the fundraiser. Looking forward to C# 1.8 and beyond :)
Alexander > -----Original Message----- > From: David Hook [mailto:d...@autochthonous.org] > Sent: Friday 29 November 2013 09:41 > To: dev-crypto-csharp@bouncycastle.org; announce-crypto- > csh...@bouncycastle.org > Subject: [dev-crypto-csharp] The future of Bouncy Castle - Regular releases, > FIPS, or bust! > > Hi all, > > Those of you who follow the Java release as well will probably be aware > that, after a few years of struggling to do a release a year, we've > finally managed to get it back to a 3-4 month release cycle. The 50th > Java release will actually be coming out next week, after that we are > planning to concentrate our efforts on finally getting C# 1.8 out, and > ensuring that the recent hiatus is not repeated. Getting C# mirrored on > github was the first stage of this, and currently we're looking to > release 1.8 once we have finished merging a contributed port of the BC > Java TLS/DTLS APIs. In the light of all this activity I thought it would > be appropriate to fill everyone in on a few changes to the way we at > Bouncy Castle work, which have been helping make this build up in > momentum possible. > > As a few of you are aware, the core developers and some friends of the > project set up a not-for-profit association a couple of months ago to > allow us to capture management of the libraries into a single legal > entity. I'm pleased to announce that the entity that was set up, Legion > of the Bouncy Castle Inc., has now been recognised and registered by the > Australian Government as a charity established for the public benefit, > and for the benefit of education. > > From our users perspective, the biggest change is that we have > established certainty that the libraries will always be freely > available. The biggest change from the project's point of view, other > than the new structure providing us with a better framework to > co-ordinate our efforts in, is that we are now able to accept donations > in order to help progress development. As a few of you are also aware > last year some of us started a company, Crypto Workshop Pty Ltd, for the > purpose of providing consulting services and commercial support > contracts. While this has gone okay, and the Java releases are already > starting to benefit from time donated back from support contracts, it > has become clear that our consulting arm is not something that will > allow us to undertake major exercises such as FIPS certification, > without putting at risk the principles we wish this project to continue > to be built on, such as maintaining it as freely available. This is why > attaining recognition as a charity and the ability to accept donations, > with the appropriate oversight implied, is really important to us, and > to you, our user community. > > Which brings me to my next announcement. We're marking these changes by > having our first fundraiser, and our first target is to meet the costs > of getting the C# libraries appropriately certified. We believe we can > raise this money, but we do know we cannot do it without your help, so > if you, like us, value the independence of this project, and wish to see > it continue to provide you with quality open source cryptography, please > follow the link below to find out how to donate. > > https://www.bouncycastle.org/donate/index.cgi > > As it is our first fundraiser, we have also been able to get our > resident cartoonist to provide us with t-shirt artwork allowing us to > provide donors with a PDF template which will enable you to create an > official fundraiser t-shirt of your own. Wear it with pride! > > If anyone has any questions, please feel free to contact me. On behalf > of the Legion, I would be grateful if you pass this message on to anyone > you know would be interested. > > Regards, > > David
