Takeover Yapter?

Update: I have come to agreement on this with the now previous maintainer.  I'm now heading up the Yaper project.  As such, this will be the templating engine that will be used for PolarBlog in the future.   You can learn more about that here.

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Contemplate, contemplate, contemplate…

For the past couple of years I've user the Yapter templating engine to drive my site.  Development on this project has been slow as it was released in a reasonable state, but then development quickly tailed off.  I've had to hack most version to get them to work properly and was considering abandoning it entirely.  But I don't have the time or the motivation to do that because, "If it ain't broke, why fix it?".

Just this week a new version was released to address some issue with PHP5.  And once again I found myself hacking on it to work out some bugs.  This latest release was simply put out by the original developer, but was actually someone else's work.  I've been corresponding with him regarding the problems I've encountered and he's indicated that he would like to basically be rid of the project as he no longer want to maintain it.  He's done so only out of a sense of guilt to those who are using…which he's indicated is a significant number of people.

He had offered to turn control of the project over to me, but I initially declined.  I'm already running a largely one-man operation supporting both MyClient and PolarBlog.  I'm not sure I really have the time to dedicate to yet another project.  But I've been considering templating engines for PolarBlog, and Yapter would work nicely as it is lightweight and efficient.  And that is major consideration for PolarBlog, as I've written what I believe to be a very fast application and intend to keep it that way.

After doing some more hacking on it this morning, I've now got the latest version running on my site.  (So if you see a problem, please report it!) I've also replied to the current developer about one of the first problems I ran into earlier this week —a problem I've solved along with a couple of others.  Since this conversation started, he has sent a message to the announcement list seeking someone to assume the project.  In my reply today I indicated that I might consider assuming it if he doesn't find any other takers.

I'm unsure whether I should or will take this over or not.  I can't and won't guarantee that I will be any more responsive to others problems than he has become.  I'd like to think that as long as I'm using it, I would keep it functional though as I depend upon it for my site.  So those that want to keep using it also would have some level of support, but I can't see really pushing it's development a whole lot more.  Any additions would largely be to fulfill my needs for this site and PolarBlog should I choose to go this route.  I figure at this point I don't have a lot to lose and at best I might gain some other developers to help out.
January 21, 2006 @ 12:07 pm | Category:
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