Frustration (forgive a FAQ please)

[Jason Gunthorpe]

On Mon, 27 Sep 1999, Johan Wevers wrote:

> > The change from PGP2.x key formats to OpenPGP key formats is not backwards
> > compatible,
> 
> BTW, why is that done? Was it done for some fundamental lack of options in
> pgp 2.x, or because the creators of the OpenPGP docs wanted to force an
> upgrade, just as when pgp 2.6 became incompatible with 2.3a?

AFAIK it was to get new features and fix some of the complaints with the
old key format. I know the old PGP 2.x packet format was also somewhat
limited and was improved as well.
 
> Why more secure? Because signing and encryption keys are separated, or is
> there another reason?

There is that, there is also the fixes made to deter forging fingerprints
and probably other things I don't know about.
 
> > I hope not, PGP2.x should be killed off as quickly as possible.

> I disagree. GnuPG should not start the same game that was started with the
> introduction of pgp 2.6 and especially 5.

I'm just happy that GPG can interoperate with PGP2.x as much as it can -
it could be worse.

Jason