Facebook Sponsors Let's Encrypt

Before the skeptical comments rush in, can we for a moment take a step back and appreciate this. Facebook has a lot of leaders who has worked in the industry for long and I am sure they understand the value as much as we do. There’s a very strong possibility that FB did this without any motives.

And the bigger news is that letsencrypt starts its public beta today! You don&#x27;t need to buy SSL certs anymore! Wow! Someone submit <i>this</i> story!

Is there any indication what the sponsorship money of Let&#x27;s Encrypt goes toward?<p>Corporate sponsorship looks to be somewhere around $2m&#x2F;year.<p>Is the money needed for scaling? Hiring engineers? Broadening product line?

I wonder why, really. I read Facebook&#x27;s statement. But everyone always has internal motives (in particular when money is involved), and I wonder what Facebook gains from this?<p>I know why EFF&#x2F;Mozilla does it (charity), Akamai do it ($$$ for them), Cisco might also profit from it somehow (e.g. upgraded enterprise appliances to support HTTPS on the proxy), but Facebook? I don&#x27;t get Facebook&#x27;s play here.

Being careful not to look a gift horse in the mouth, but... It is interesting that Facebook ($300 Billion market cap) decided to support at the $150k level instead of the $350k level (i.e. saving themselves from a rounding-error $200,000 additional commitment).<p>It cost them more than that to make the decision and the press release.

Cool project. I hope nginx support for the client isn&#x27;t far away.

Taken in isolation, this is a laudable move. But shouldn&#x27;t it be evaluated within the context of their own internet.org initiative?<p>For those unaware, internet.org does not support TLS&#x2F;HTTPS for most connections. It is probably the single largest attempt in history to remove secure access from a population, just in the name of advertising instead of national security.

React, Casandra, Flux, and tons more, Internet.org and now this? I can now feel a little less bad that every time I click like, that at least my personal information is supporting some great projects.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;code.facebook.com&#x2F;projects&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;code.facebook.com&#x2F;projects&#x2F;</a>

Why not a Platinum sponsor?