circuit_breaker wrote:Ripped from /. forums (dare I assume validity of an AC?):
Phoenix development has died. Hyatt is now working on Safaria full time(he couldn't be happier), Blake(high schooler busy with getting ready for college) is MIA and Asa as usual doesn't comment on such things even when they seem grim. It looks like Phoenix as a project is dying/dead. No work has been done on Phoenix since December, and a critical bug has prevented anyone from using themes/extensions with new nightly versions since 12/28. This most basic bug pretty much shows the state of the project and how the developers involved have either a)lost interest or b) simply moved on. I know Blake had talked how eventually even he would get bored and move on(let any dev would), but it would have been nice if he had at least given some sort of warning.
<a href=http://ask.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=51266&cid=5115764>direct link here</a>
any truth to this?
This is completely accurate (other than possible the Blake details, but I can believe they are also correct based on some of his past work). There has been no development work on Phoenix since November 2002 - Phoenix 0.4 was the last version with significant project-specific changes. Since then, Phoenix has been coasting on the changes on the shared Mozilla codebase, along with the recent Qute theme change.
I don't really understand the excuses given here for the lack of Phoenix development. Dave Hyatt was defintely the best Phoenix developer, and unless his Apple contract prevents work on other browsers, I can't see why he isn't able to contribute (at all) to Phoenix. I still see Mozilla check-ins that have been reviewed by Hyatt, so it isn't though he has completely disappeared.
Also, I don't buy the Blake Ross "applying for college" excuse. High school + applying for college is, at best, a 3/4 time job. The "got bored and went away" explanation seems much more plausable. Recall that at one point, he was going to stop working on Phoenix anyway and concentrate on the standalone email client. I suspect that project was too much for him, so he returned to browser development for a short time, but has since become disinterested in working on Phoenix.
Finally, everyone seems to be forgetting the 3rd Phoenix developer - Pierre Chanial. Any idea what happened to him?
The future for Phoenix looks rather bleak. There are more and more bugs that are being created due to changes in the shared Mozilla/Gecko codebase. Patches are created and logged, but no one is around to check them in. And there is no driving force for future releases (the naming problem is a trivial problem, at best).
It would be best for the project if the developers would publically either explain the lack of development, and/or give up control of the Phoenix CVS source code tree, so that any qualified developer can contribute changes.