Since SimplePie 1.0 Preview Release 1 was released back in January 2006, we’ve used the fora (running PunBB) as a bug tracker ? mainly because of my hatred of the usability of almost all bug trackers. A few weeks ago, I came across Redmine: the first bug tracker I’ve ever been happy using. I admit, I’m not overly pleased with 0.6.3 (the current release), as the link to submit a new issue is amazingly hidden, and it is impossible to upload anything from Safari 3 (and from other browsers in some circumstances).

However, the current development copy is far better, and removes all the issues I had with it. Submitting a new issue is now very obvious (a “New Issue” tab within the project), and the other was fixed in twenty minutes (now that is what I wish every project was like ? but we aren’t there ourselves).

The new bug tracker has all issues that are scheduled to be (or already are) done in 1.1.1 and later. I think I’ve got all the bugs that currently affect SimplePie in it: if I haven’t, could you please either reply to a current thread on the fora about the bug, or add it to the new bug tracker?

I hope this is far less controversial than the move of the support fora, but to defend that: I have posted far more to it than I would have if the support was still dealt with through fora. I believe moving the bug tracking will be universally helpful to everyone either using SimplePie, or developing it.

Oh, and yes, this does mean I’m still around: I didn’t just disappear off the face of the earth at the end of December. I’m still around. I will be development lead of SimplePie 2 until it ships, and be involved with it for far longer than that (though doing very little development). My departure from SimplePie is far from immediate (though I have for the most part left SimplePie 1 development, following the release of 1.1 last month), and I knew without question that SimplePie would survive: there are enough people who want it to continue to keep it from dying, and there are plenty of people who already know the SimplePie 1 codebase well (such as Steve, who is now himself a developer) that I knew would help, if asked (myself and Ryan had discussed adding other developers around a year ago, before there was even any thought about me leaving). Myself stepping down really doesn’t mean that much in terms of the future of SimplePie. The decision wasn’t sudden, either: I first thought about leaving SimplePie back in November, and first spoke to anyone about doing so in mid-December ? I want SimplePie to succeed more than most, I expect, despite not even having used it myself since 2006.