It was a hard lesson learned.
The problem was, it wasn’t just me who suffered. It was dozens of people in my organization, and had this happened a month later than it did, it could have been hundreds.
We’ve had some fairly high profile Linux distros fold up their tents and move along. Whether due to a lack of financial support or the project growing larger than a one man dev team can manage, distros do go away. It’s never for a good reason but the fact remains: When a distro ceases to exist, a lot of people get left in the lurch.
Most recently, it was CrunchBang which rang the bell. I could feel the conflict and sadness in lead developer Philip Newborough’s statement. He didn’t want to do this, but for his own reasons he did. But what struck me in the middle of my being was his statement:
“As for me, while I’m deeply sad to let go of a project that in many ways has defined my existence for many years.”