All along the watchtower...
And also...
The TC devs have been willing to labor in obscurity for 10 years on an ideological project that almost certainly hasn't earned them a living, that is wasted on and unappreciated by most computer users, that could earn the devs some pretty powerful enemies, and the importance of which has arguably been steadily eroded by the feature creep of popular operating systems.
It would not be shocking to learn that the devs were fairly eccentric. Socially idiosyncratic. Crotchety. Grouchy. Zealots. Justified paranoids. Assholes, even. And I say this with affection: I've used TrueCrypt for years. It warms my heart to imagine that my security software was designed by grouchy zealot paranoid assholes.
I point this out because most of the "something is UP" vibe this story seems to radiate really just comes down to "But this is so abrupt and confusing!" That is, it comes down to the social signals connected to the event, or lack thereof. But the devs have never been very forthcoming with any sort of social signals. If they're grouchy zealot paranoids, they may see social signals as weakness. Well, in this newfangled game, where every detail of your writing style is preserved for all time, for later analysis by computers and programs that don't even exist yet, maybe they can be.
I'm coming around to the point of view that this isn't as crazy a way for the devs to quit the TC project as it seems at first blush. TC is open source and I'm sure the program will continue to be developed to some degree by someone. Probably several projects, several someones. Maybe the TC devs (who haven't updated TC at all in nearly two years) have a new project they view as more important. Maybe being a grouchy zealot is really tiring.
posted by Western Infidels at 9:24 PM on May 28 [18 favorites]