2021-07-01 - Development Hiatus

Header Data

From: Tim <ti***8@gmail.com>
Message Hash: 30d2bc4ec88d68bd2c89ff4343fac01c3ceb169021dd5940f550a8765c9998d3
Message ID: <CAESLx0LZuovisbxbPhxC1sPL00eSTiw11DgYTVmoZnOGbEtt-g@mail.gmail.com>
Reply To: N/A
UTC Datetime: 2021-07-01 07:50:17 UTC
Raw Date: Thu, 01 Jul 2021 22:50:17 +0800

Raw message 

When I started coding the first version of the Grase Hotspot 13 years ago,
it was to solve a problem for me and those around me. After developing it
for a while, I opened it up to the world to share. Over the years I
continued developing, both for myself (to solve problems around me), and
for the community that sprung up around it. It's always been my pet
project, something I'm very proud of, and I hope it's solved many problems
for others as well. I am really proud of the community that sprung up
around me, as people helped each other get things working, and contributed
to the project in various ways.

However, times have changed. As you are aware, the world has changed
drastically in the last 18 months. For various reasons, my available time
to work on the Grase Hotspot has been reduced many times over the years. My
family has grown, work demands have increased. Time is precious, and
choosing where to spend our time is one of the most important things we can
do. It is time to be clear, both to myself and the community, that I am
choosing to spend my time on my family instead of the Grase Hotspot
development.

Two years ago I was considering changes to my work commitments, which would
have allowed more development on the Grase Hotspot to be done, assuming the
funding was available. However, there was never enough funding to make that
a reality, and with the change in the global work environment, it's no
longer something I am willing to do. More donations will not magically fix
the time issue, and so I have disabled the donation forms and cancelled any
remaining recurring donations.

I thank you, the community, for the support over the years, in responding
to others on the mailing list, translation files, bug reporting, bug fixes,
logo designs, and donations. We would never have gotten this far without
the community.

All the code is still available on Github and Gitlab, although as archived
repositories. (https://github.com/GraseHotspot/grase-www-portal and
https://gitlab.com/grase/grase-www-portal/ are the main repos). For now,
the apt repo's will continue to operate, however I make no promise about
how long they'll operate for. They are actually in git repo's as well, so
if you need the files, they are always there. The mailing list will
continue to operate, unless everyone unsubscribes, then I'll close it down.

If someone wants to fork things and continue development, I welcome them to
step up, fork the repo and start! And if things are progressing, I'm happy
to work with them to publish releases for everyone (and even merge it back
to the main repo). Rest assured, I will not hand over the keys (signing
keys) of the apt repo's to anyone, that is too much of a security risk. If
a fork is continuing, and I'm not able to merge it back to the main repo
and push releases from there, it will be upto the forker to run their own
apt repo, with their own keys.

Lastly, things can change. If my time situation changes in the future, I'll
revisit the Grase Hotspot then, and see if there is still a place for it in
the community, and if what we have can be resurrected.

God Bless

Tim

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