Re: [qet] [en] Resignation from the QElectroTech project

[Youssef Oualmakran <youssefsan@xxxxxxxxx>]

Dear QET users and (ex)-developpers,

I would like to use this opportunity to thank the huge work made by
Xavier. He is not only a skilled programmer who created from scratch a
working program for drawing electrical diagrams that is unique in the
open source ecosystem in this area. He has spent many hours for this
task. He is also a manager who helped creating a community, replying
to many emails, building a web site, setting up an SVN server, etc.
Moreover he contributed to the English translation and the translation
coordination. So we are not losing one persons, but several persons.
So, I think he deserves a big "thank you" from many people.

I would like also to thank the (not so) new people who took part in
the development of the software.

I am currently a bit busy for some <s> real life</s> off-line stuff as
some on-line stuff. But I think, it would be nice, if we see how we
can attract some C++ developpers. I have some ideas that I will try to
share later.

Thank you all for your contributions.
Regards,

Youssef

2013/3/14, Xavier G. <xavier@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>:
> Hello,
>
> The QElectroTech project now exists for more than 6 years. It originally
> started out as a common project between two students: the first one was
> studying electrotechnics and needed a free software to draw electric
> diagrams while the second one was studying I.T. and needed a good idea of
> real-life software to be implemented in order to improve its development
> skills. As you already know, the first student is Benoît and I am that
> second student.
>
> I strove to maintain QElectroTech for a few years after it appeared Benoît
> did not need it for its now-professional interests. Having no skills in the
>
> field of electricity, this maintenance was done with a distribution of roles
>
> similar to what occurs in the world of professional development:
> contributors involved in the field of electrotechnics patiently explained
> their functional requirements to me so I could implement them in the
> software itself. The list of those requirements grew quickly, so that
> multiplying their count by the amount of time required to accomplish them in
>
> a correct way guarantees that QElectroTech will keep a small development
> team busy for years.
>
> Unfortunately, it became harder and harder for me to find time, mainly for
> the usual reasons that make volunteering so scarce: professional life,
> personal life, other projets, hobbies and experiments, etc, etc, etc.
>
> Today, the statement is pretty clear: my free time is getting too rare for
> me to keep finding any motivation to work on a software I cannot use and
> which does not contribute anymore to my professional expertise. I do not
> doubt things would have been different if implementing new features in this
>
> software had served my personal or professional life. Also, I insist on the
>
> "work" wording: despite the usage of a renowned framework, developing a
> portable GUI application requires organization, strictness, thoroughness and
>
> patience. Considering QElectroTech, this is increased by the presence of
> various interactive canvas and the necessity not to break the different file
>
> formats.
>
> Eventually, I maintained QElectroTech mainly because I thought it was not
> appropriate to leave an application without somebody to transmit it to.
> However, I recently figured out that perhaps it was better to explicitly
> disengage myself from the project to attract potential volunteers,
> interested by the necessity to keep developing this software, rather than
> letting the whole world believe that QElectroTech is still actively
> maintained.
>
> I tried to stay a little more in the project, typically "at least until the
>
> 0.3 version", but neither the last nor the next released version have a real
>
> impact on the topic.
>
> For all these reasons, I announce today my complete retirement from the
> QElectroTech project: I will not provide code anymore and will not interfere
>
> in the process of conception, development, debugging, packaging,
> documentation, etc. I will remain some times on the IRC channel of the
> project to ensure it is well transmitted to new hands.
>
> I wish all the best to the QElectroTech project.
>
> Xavier Guerrin
>