[IRCServices] Services 5.1pre0 released

[Trevor Talbot]

On May 6, 2007, at 1:18 AM, Andrew Church wrote:

>      The second, and more important, reason for posting the 
> announcement to this list is that I intend version 5.1 to be the last 
> version of IRC Services, at least under my care.  While I don't 
> consider Services "complete"--software development is a neverending 
> task, and in any case users' needs change over time--I do believe that 
> it's time for me to move on to other things.  In fact, I already 
> devote a fair amount of my time outside of work to other software 
> development projects (such as the audio/video tool "transcode", for 
> those who are familiar with it), and I have other hobbies which I 
> haven't been able to pursue as much as I'd like.  I've also found that 
> I personally use IRC very infrequently these days, and that has 
> inevitably lessened my interest in continuing Services development as 
> well.

>      I realize that this "end-of-life" announcement for Services may 
> come as a surprise to some, and for that I apologize.  As I mentioned 
> earlier, I will continue to support Services for some time to come (my 
> current thought is for two to three years after the release of 5.1.0); 
> however, I did want to provide advance warning of my future 
> intentions.  Thank you all for your support over the years.

Even though it's not "over", I wanted to say a couple things.

First, thank you for all the work you've done during the last several 
years.  Besides IRC Services itself, most of the NickServ/ChanServ 
-style services packages in use today trace their origins to your 
software in one form or another.  Inspiring that much development is no 
small accomplishment.  I've certainly customized IRC Services for 
specific uses in the past.  We've also had discussions about irc3, 
which has inspired me personally to think about IRC in a slightly 
different way for several years now.  I've found that line of thought 
to be quite intriguing, and perhaps it will lead to me to create 
something useful later on.

And second, thank you for having an "exit plan".  Far too many projects 
are simply abandoned by their authors and maintainers.  While obviously 
software such as this cannot take priority over other life concerns, 
it's great to see someone recognize they will be unable to continue 
ahead of time, and plan to make that eventuality as painless as 
possible for those who use it.

-- Quension