He's written good code and it sucks that he's burning out, but it's not cool to ignore questions and not even try to find a maintainer. Capistrano is used by nearly every Rails project, abandoning it is grossly irresponsible.
I've never made any promises about the project. I never claimed that I would be around for ever. I never said I would ignore questions, either -- just that I would ignore emails sent directly to me. But I'm going to remain on the mailing list, and will remain about as responsive there as I have (and I'm, by far, the most frequest poster there).
This is the traditional method in most open-source communities... particularly where there are canonical distribution sources such as the rubyforge gems.
Even if no one steps forward, would that be so bad? Capistrano works perfectly well for the vast majority of folks. It's not like I'm leaving behind a legacy of mostly-broken software. :)
if i want to update my installed version of net::ssh, can i go to the project's homepage and download a new version or do i have to look through a dozen forks on github to find out which one looks to be the most maintained and hasn't broken anything?
It's one thing if people fall back on things they've explicitly promised; it's another if someone just honestly says, "I don't have the time and energy for this anymore."
Open source software gets abandoned all the time. This is only being discussed here because Jamis took the gentleman's approach and informed everyone that he was stepping down.
People say there isn't an entitlement mentality amongst people these days, but this kind of reaction is pretty compelling evidence that there is.
Setting up the website, writing docs, writing the mailing list, taking improvements -- you might not have made an explicit promise to be immortal and support capistrano and all western civilization in perpetuity, but your actions led people to believe they could rely on you.
From the blog post:
> For Capistrano, I will continue to follow the mailing list, and might appear in the #capistrano irc channel from time to time, but I am no longer the maintainer of these projects.
He kind of came out and said it.
Sorry to jump on the beatdown bandwagon, but there really is no defense for your attitude here.
To state the obvious, he owes you nothing. The source code is there. If this were proprietary software and the vendor went bust, would you expect its employees to show up for work every day and support former customers for free? Now consider that Jamis has been doing just that this whole time!
I'm not a heartless bastard or a useless eater, I just think it's not cool to ditch people you encouraged to rely on you. It's not at all unreasonable if he's burning out, but that doesn't make it classy.
As for the "Hey, anyone interested" blog post: I've tried that before, on other projects. People don't respond to those. No one volunteers to be hit on the head with hammer repeatedly for no other compensation than a few slaps on the back. You have to really, really, REALLY want to do it, and a blog post is a bad way to ask for passion. Passion is discovered when you realize you need something, and it's not there (or not ENOUGH there). By dropping out, I've created an environment where people have to really examine their use of Capistrano and decide how passionate they are about it. Passionate enough to pick up where I left off? We'll see.
My decision was the right one. I stand by it. There has already been a post on the mailing list by a couple of programmers who have the credentials and the passion, and are willing to carry the torch. Maybe they would have responded to a blog post. Maybe not. But they've responded now, and now the community can either support them, or look elsewhere. My official sanction has nothing to do with it.
I am sorry you (and a handful of others) are frustrated. I wish it hadn't come to this. But honestly, it's not my problem anymore. (And my! How wonderful to be able to say that!)
However, I'd have to say, being a loyal user of capistrano, I am not sure that I could have brought anything meaningful to the table regarding its architecture or decisions, it was just a great piece of software that I used, and will continue to use.
I'm sorry to hear that you burned out and I hope that you will quickly recover.
I respect your decision and I believe you did the right thing. Your health comes before a few folks that are not willing to put the effort to fix things that bother them about the libraries.
You've already done way more than was required of you. Thanks!
He is doing more than Microsoft did with VB6, but for free. He did us all a favor by releasing it and spending a tremendous amount of time on it. It is open source, you can do whatever you want with it. The free labor of love he bestowed upon the world is MORE than classy, regardless. PERIOD.
If your neighbor shovels your driveway once, I suggest he is cool for doing it, not uncool if he does not do it next week. Capistrano has saved me personally scores of hours of work. So thank-you Jamis.
Capistrano is one of the greatest parts of Rails development/deployment. Thanks Jamis for ALL of your hard work. I am sorry I didn't say Thank You sooner.