[Pan-users] Re: What's the status of new development?

[Duncan]

Bruce Bowler <address@hidden> posted
address@hidden, excerpted below, on  Thu, 31 Jan 2008
15:46:46 +0000:

> The most recent version is dated 1-Aug-2007, that's (as of tomorrow) 6
> months ago.  We were getting updates weekly for a while.  Has Charles
> dropped off the face of the earth?

He has a way of doing that for awhile, once in awhile.  Last time it 
happened, he was gone for ~8 months, came back long enough to post a 
couple betas, then was gone a year and a half or more...  We all thought 
he'd abandoned it and there were a few talking about trying to pickup 
development.  Turns out he was (secretly) working on the rewrite into C++ 
the entire time!  Then when he came back, it was weekly betas for about a 
year and a half as he worked out the worst kinks in the C++ rewrite (0.90
+), and I'm sure he got burnt out.  So I wasn't surprised to see him take 
a break for awhile, but it'd be nice if he'd pop in and tell us what's 
happening and if it's going to be six months (it already has) or a year 
or two again.

FWIW, it might be worth a bit of incentive if he got a bit of money in 
the tip jar.  I don't know if it has changed since the rewrite came out, 
but he remarked at one point before that, that he'd gotten something like 
$16, sum-total, over all the years he had put in.  No pot calling the 
kettle black here or anything, and this isn't pointed specifically at you 
or anyone; I'd intended to do it when it hit 1.0, which at one point he 
was hoping to be the next stable version (I think he gave up on that 
idea, tho, maybe why he decided to take the break), but that didn't come, 
and I didn't put anything in the tip jar...  So I'm just sain', is all.

Maybe we ought to get a campaign together with all the regulars and 
anyone else who wants to pitch in, and see if we can pull say $500, or at 
least a couple hundred, together...  That's not much in hours for a 
programmer as he is, but it'd certainly show some symbolic appreciation, 
which might help the burn-out thing.  If anyone thinks it's worth it, do 
we all want to public-pledge, or just do our own thing anon, or nominate 
someone to keep pledge records and post totals, but not individual 
donations, to the list/group.  Of course, it'd be honor system if we did 
the latter, since the money would go direct to him, not to the guy 
keeping the otherwise anon records...  I like this latter idea, as I 
think it's worth a campaign and would like to see the sort of totals we 
could get, but don't believe it appropriate to say publicly what I 
personally would throw in.  I'd love to set a goal, tho, and see if we 
could reach it, even if it's honor system.

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman