[InspIRCd] 1.2.1, 2.0a1, and these times are a'changing...

[TamCore]

First up, a very small summary, because this is going to be a very long post.

- 1.2.1 is released and now available.
It contains two crash fixes over 1.2.0, and a small number of other enhancements.
- 2.0.0a1 is released and now available.
Also known as the 'daniel went insane to bring this to you' release
- I'm retiring from the development team.

Now, in detail, I'll approach these in opposite order from how they were announced, because I know that a lot of people are going to have a lot of different questions.

Myself first:
This will come as nothing new to some people, but a lot of you won't know this properly, but here it goes: I've been around IRC now for approximately 8 years, or in more casual terms "far too long".

Of these 8 years, I've been with InspIRCd not quite from the beginning, but certainly from very early on - and definitely from when it was actually usable. It's been a pleasure to see somethin grow from being so small to being so thriving and tangible and full of life in a harsh environment like IRC where so many projects die or don't reach their potential. It's not been an easy road, it's definitely not been a rewarding road, but it's been a fulfilling one.

I've enjoyed these 8 years, and I'm by no means leaving IRC. I just think that - for now - the time has come for me to move on to other things. As such, and because InspIRCd is in capable hands (daniel & others), I will be.. for lack of a better word.. retiring from development.

For day to day things, this means you don't need to come to me anymore. Daniel and the rest of the team, the bugtracker, forums, &c will all still be around - and welcoming your participation. InspIRCd will go on - and as this post proves - is going on perfectly well without my participation. I haven't done much/any of the work for these two releases.

I'd like to personally extend a thanks to everyone over the years who has helped me, encouraged me, thanked me - and even called me an asshole. You've all helped push this project far beyond what it ever would have been for me otherwise. In terms of names, (obviously in *addition* to the team), I'd like to thank Brain, Special, Stskeeps (who certainly has, and continues, to enjoy calling me an asshole), danieldg, peavey and last - but by no means least, Brik.

I'd like to also note that the team has my best wishes to continue on and kick some ass. I'm sure you will. We're off to a good start being the #2 most used IRCd and climbing in numbers daily. 1.2 in particular is now over 100 servers - our best record so far.

If anyone is curious as to what I'm going to be working on in the future, well, this will sound a bit familiar to some of you, but I'm going to be spending my spare time on various other programming things, amongst them, some work on smaller devices like tablets. I'm first in line to purchase a Nokia N900 next week and I think you should be to. Mobile devices are a huge part of our world, but one which has by no means been fully explored from a software standpoint, and I think that's something that we need a lot more of.

For more information, see http://wiki.maemo.org/Mer

--

Back to the releases, 1.2.1 is available to follow up on two crashes reported in 1.2.0. I'm personally thrilled we've had so few problems with 1.2 since release. It vindicates to me that we did the *right* thing when developing it, and we released it at more or less the right time. I'm sure it will continue to grow to new heights in the future.

To download, visit:
http://www.inspircd.org/?p=download&version=1.2.1
(as usual, using wget? *quote the URL*)


2.0.0a1 is released. A lot of you might be wondering what the hell we are thinking releasing a new major release (even in alpha) so soon after 1.2, well, this is the 'big plan' we've been working on for the past year. We're going to be releasing major changes more often, but we still won't release them before they're ready, so, as usual - this one is for previewing and testing, not for deploying on your network at this stage.

To download, visit:
http://www.inspircd.org/?p=download&version=2.0.0a1
(as usual, using wget? *quote the URL*)

I'd like to thank danieldg for putting together these releases, in particular, for the immense amount of work he put into 2.0, and to pass on my personal hopes for an amazing future that I'm sure will become reality soon enough.

For the curious, a diffstat and changelog will be attached as always.

http://inspircd.org/forum/showthread.php?t=6798