3.0 development is going to swing into high gear later this month. Specs, docs, initial APIs, and tests will all be online shortly.

There are a few surprises to be unveiled.

2.x development will halt after the release of 2.6.3. It will address all currently known bugs.

If any more bugs are discovered, we will create maintenance releases; however, no new features will be developed for the 2.x code base.

Yes, I have been away for a while.

No, I haven't found a new lover. You are still my only source code.

Yes, I will buy you that 2.6.3 dress that you wanted, just be patient. I have to work at another job, since you don't provide any income.

Not that I want you to, just that you have to understand, those bytes you eat, they come out of my pocket. The bread I eat does too. Sometimes I have to work to get more bread and bytes for us to share.

Then, I can get back to working for you.

People love to say that...

I realize that most of our user base is highly satisfied with the effort that the development team sinks into this project and that our users as a whole are happy with the effort we make to support their needs.

However, the number of people using software has increased steadily over the years, while those who understand the nature of open source development has not.

Therefore, I want to start by reminding all of you that you have no rights here.

Open source developers work long hours and get paid nothing. This software is provided because it gives our team personal satisfaction to provide it.

We work hard to make the product configurable, useful, clean, efficient, and bug free. Any software developer will tell you that this is an ongoing project. No product ever seems to be complete. Look to the giants to see this truth realized: Microsoft Windows, Adobe Photoshop, and Internet Explorer to name a few.

It doesn't take a software developer to realise the time consumption that software development represents. We have devoted thousands of hours to this tool over the course of several years , and that we have no hope of seeing any return on that investment, other than the esteem of our users.

Thus, the only currency you have, as users, to purchase our attention and assistance is respect. If you don't pay it, then you don't play here. In truth, we owe our users considerably less than nothing.

What, then, could any user hope to accomplish through behaving in a rude, self-righteous fashion? It is clearly destructive to the only relationship we have, which is a tenuous friendship.

The number of people who come into this site with expectations of how the open source community will junk all the other users and jump to meet their personal whims is amazing.

Unbelievably, these people conduct themselves as if we should redesign the product in a manner which they would have done it, rather than learning to use the software as it was intended (or building/finding another).

This sort of behavior reminds me of how upside down the world has become. We are in the business of charity here, and the demands that we get from newbie users are the sort that are made by corporations throwing millions of dollars at their problems.

Well... I guess that is enough ranting.

Here is a much more succinct and persuasive read on the topic of I have the right!.

Thanks, as always, to our wonderful user base. You guys are what keeps us working through the rough times and what helps us to forget the irreverants.

We are planning to add the Mass Edit and the User Group features into the 2.x code branch before we call it quits and focus full time on 3.0.

I wonder how many people will actually use these? I wonder if anyone is interested in seeing the email gateway updated before we continue.

Each of these features pushes the 3.0 release out by 1 to 2 months and we could bring it to the public much earlier if we focused full time on development.

A new poll gives you the chance to contribute your thoughts.

2.6.2 is finally coming to a close.

It has more features than I wanted, took longer to test than anyone cared for, and solved more bugs than we could have hoped.

Just a few more cleanup issues and a release to build.