Re: [Nano-devel] releases?

[Chris Allegretta]

On Thu, Feb 12, 2004 at 11:36:13PM +0100, Jordi Mallach wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I wonder what the plans are for a 1.2.x release. Debian is freezing the
> important components soonish, I believe.

I've been silent long enough about this, and I owe you all much more,
but at the very least an explanation.  I haven't been able to give nano
the time it deserves, and there is no excuse for it; there however very
real reasons why.  Nano is just not high enough a priority anymore.  

I have a 3 month old daughter now, and although I'm sure everyone says
they will never adjust to being a parent, it certainly doesn't feel like
there's enough hours in the day to sleep, let alone to any 'fun'
programming activities like nano.

I say 'fun' because doing nano hasn't been any fun for some time.  I'm
very grateful to David for taking on maintainership of the 1.3 series,
because the technical issues to improving nano any further were beyond
my skills as a programmer.  He's even been giving me the 1.2 series 
patches, all I have to do is look them over and commit them, and I have 
not made time to do that.   I'm basically the Ghost of Nano's past who 
is standing in the way of its improvement or at least maintenence.

Really I never was a programmer, I'm a sysadmin.  Along those lines, in
March I get to change jobs again, or more precisely, employers.  This is
my 5th contractor I've been employed by over the course of two actually
different jobs.  Such is the life of a contractor in the 21st century. 
Being a sysadmin is also very technical, and really drains most of (what
little) technical juice I have left.  So by the end of the day I guess
I'd rather look at my baby than at computer monitors that look just like
the ones I've been staring at at work all day.

These are my problems, not anyone elses, and I don't want to sound like
I'm complaining. At this point, it certainly seems like the best thing
for nano is for me to keep earning a living so I can afford to host the
program and web site.  I will make an evaluation in, say, April, when I
adjust to the new employer and see how my duties may change as a result.
If things do not improve for the better, I think it would be best for
all parties involved if I assign the copyright to David or the FSF and
bow out entirely.  I know GNU does hosting, but honestly the arrogant
sysadmin and control freak in me wants the s/w hosted on machines I have
some control over, at least until this point.  

Anyway, I appreciate everyone's patience, you've all been extremely
patient with me, much more so than I deserve.  I realize there isn't
much left to be done for 1.2.3, David sent me one small patch for
inclusion which I was 90% okay with, and the other 10% stopped me from
committing, and away went the rest of my free time until now.  I will
plan to release 1.2.3 Sunday, if only to hold myself to a deadline. 
1.2.3 WILL be released Sunday, now I have to do it, right? :) Anyway, it
seems all I do is apologize nowadays, so I'm sorry for that as well... 
My next email to the list should either have the Subject 'GNU nano 
1.2.3' or 'New maintainer needed for 1.2 series'.

Chris A
-- 
Chris Allegretta        http://www.asty.org

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