GnuPG documentation project

The goal of the GnuPG documentation project is to provide manuals and other documentation so that people can use GnuPG correctly and wisely. We are currently working on a user manual for GnuPG.

What's new?

October 1, 1999

• Integrated the Spanish translation of the GNU Privacy Handbook done by J Horacio MG.

September 30, 1999

• Updated the the PGP 2.x compatability guide with an an expanded version contributed by Michael Fischer v. Mollard.

September 21, 1999

• Removed interoperability section from the user manual for two reasons. First, it is an endoresement to use patented algorithms that may need to be licensed to be used legally. Second, it goes against the philosophy of the Free Software Foundation, which promotes the use of open software unencumbered by patents or other restrictions. The material is nevertheless useful to demonstrate what GnuPG can do and appears below as a separate document.

September 19, 1999

• Restructured Chapter 5 to reflect the collection of topics it actually is.
• Added a section on interoperation with PGP 2.x based on material from Kyle Hasselbacher. The good news is that GnuPG can be used as a complete replacement for PGP 2.x!

September 11, 1999

• Added material on setting expiration dates and using subkeys in Chapter 4.
• Elaborated somewhat on the roles of public and private keys when used for encryption and signing in Chapter 1.

September 8, 1999

• Added user interface guidelines to Chapter 5 based on draft material from David Wheeler.

Past announcements that are not so new.

Get the documentation

The GNU Privacy Handbook (English)

This is also available in compressed postscript, but it is not very well formatted. Furthermore, the graph in Figure 3-1 is translated to JPEG format and therefore is not yet being rendered in the postscript version. The SGML source is also available, but you will need tools to build readable documents from the source. I have some build notes if you use SGMLtools.

The GNU Privacy Handbook (Spanish)

This is also available in compressed postscript and its original SGML source.

Replacing PGP 2.x with GnuPG

This demonstrates some of GnuPG's features by showing how GnuPG can be used to communicate with PGP 2.x users. A compressed postscript version is also available, as is the SGML source.

How you can help

As always, we are looking for feedback on the user manual. Our approach has been to get material into the manual and then come back later to revise it. This gets something useful into your hands as soon as possible although it can be rough or otherwise unclear in places. Here are questions to keep in mind as you read:

• Is the organization ok?
• What is unclear?
• What questions do you have that you would like answered in the manual? This can include "conceptual" questions like "How do I get others to use GnuPG with me" as well as detailed questions about gpg.

There are other specific improvements to the manual that are needed:

• an index,
• a list of additional readings and resources, and
• coverage of additional topics:
  • using GnuPG in scripts and mailers
  • adding extension modules

If you would like to help, please send me email so that I may coordinate your work with others. If you would like to write but are concerned about your writing skills: don't worry! Editing material I get from you will almost certainly be much easier than writing it from scratch. Furthermore, I'm happy to take writing in almost any format including plain text.