Kdenlive Developer Jean-Baptiste Mardelle Is Missing

jones_supa writes "Kdenlive's project leader Jean-Baptiste Mardelle, who always used to let people know if he was going to be away for a couple of days, seems to have just disappeared. His last e-mail and blog post were in early July and they didn't suggest any problems. While there's many Kdenlive fans out there for the KDE-focused open-source video editor, it seems new development efforts around the project have ceased. Also the Kdenlive Git repository hasn't seen any new commits (aside from the automated l10n daemon script) since early July. There has been also people in KDE forums and Kdenlive developers' mailing list pondering about the status of the project, being left none the wiser."

Comments

Still involved on September 16

[Camembert]

I did a quick google and found that he posted on September 16: http://lists.kde.org/?a=120532466800019&r=1&w=2 So let us hope that the man returns. On a bigger topic, this is the kind of software that would really benefit from having far more contributors. I am not a programmer but I'd think that working on a video editor is rather cool.

Re:This is why

[theshowmecanuck]

Closed source software development will stop when it doesn't make money. It might be because the software is no longer relevant or because it sucks, but always because it is not making any more money for the developer(s). Open source projects can continue on if they suck or if they don't. There is no filter in that regard. The need to make money effectively weeds out undeserving projects and ensures there isn't a glut of half assed copycats. That is, there are a fewer number of properly QA'd more fully featured offerings for any given piece of software. And if closed source projects are good, they generally make money so they continue until they don't. Sure there are some decent open source programs. But for a workstation or laptop, I buy closed source apps and don't mind paying for them. For servers, open source seems to be at least as good as closed source. But it easier to make money selling support contracts for servers (like database servers or JEE containers) than for individual programs. So it still comes down to money.

NSA was June, a lot of people dropped off the net

[Anonymous Coward]

A lot of people dropped off the Net in July, well at least they stopped posting and doing stuff until they can secure their email, and communications.

Re:Reasons - He probably had a kid

[edremy]

Depends. For us, it was a zero warning phone call telling us to come pick up our son at the hospital. For #2, we were on vacation and got "How fast can you get to Norfolk?"

/Adoption can be amusing...

Re:Plenty of OSS are abandoned today

[maxwell demon]

Yes, the difference between Open Source and closed source is that often the Open Source project gets visible before it gets finished, therefore you see the projects that failed early on. OTOH closed source is usually not released before the developer considers it ready for use, therefore you'll never get to see most failed close source projects.