The bad news: this entire thread (the news post and Chris's comment) honestly sound a bit… burnt out? Not bleak, not hopeless, but kind of like the gas is sputtering. The good news: I and my Composr-powered website are also burnt out. It's fitting that a website as slow-updating as mine should be on a CMS that's equally slow-updating.

I know I don't speak for anyone else, but I personally don't mind v11 being "delayed" until 2025 at all. v10 is still working the same way it's been working for years. The fact that Patrick's still developing v11 (and Chris is still able to fund him to do so) is in itself a small miracle. I'd hazard to say most open-source projects would be dead at this stage of their creators' lives!

I say that as someone who successfully got a job at an open-source company working on open-source software (and hardware) over five years ago. And is almost completely over open-source by now.

Anyway, I'm hoping the new logo on composr.app is just a placeholder— the current one looks much nicer, imo. (I also still think ocPortal was a much more unique, memorable, and fitting name than Composer Composr, but I'm not expecting that to go back for v11.)

As always, here's hoping for increased exposure and an eventual healthy future for the Composr ecosystem! I can't help much at the moment, but maybe I'll try to run an upgrade with a clone of my website if I can find the time as a release candidate nears, so I can poke around for any reportable bugs.

Chris, thanks so much for that post. That was so honest and informative, and insightful. Time marches on, and peoples lives change. v11 will march on, too. And the weird thing is, so might v12 and v13, and who knows what that will look like, perhaps long after you and I and the rest of us are even able to type on a keyboard anymore. But as with the early days of writing code for modems that used telephone lines to communicate on BBS's, I will always fondly remember my small experience using the greatest CMS, Composr. People on my old Composr website actually met and got married. Stepping back, it was always about trying to bring people together. That's what you've done on a really big scale with your work. Thanks again.

Some clarification:
I’m paying Patrick primarily to finish v11. This is not v10 “losing money”, it’s just limited resources going to the priority. I am not paying Patrick to support anything (not v10 nor v11) as it’s always been the policy that people shouldn’t expect free support from core developers. An ethos of Open Source is that code has a leveraging effect, which is what makes it particularly worthwhile: write it once, see it used for many great things. Support is the opposite: it is a cost that scales by the number of people wanting support. It’s always been impossible for me to either fund that or contribute the time required. That is an opportunity for others to step in- if they want to provide free labor for whatever positive reason, or commercial services.
I’m all for it but I can’t make it happen. If there really are bugs in v10 that means it can’t do key things that it was designed/specified to do, not even with workarounds, Patrick can fix that. But not things like updating it to new standards or supporting new versions of dependencies or so on, as that was not the original spec. Again, that’s an opportunity for others to step in if they think it worthwhile. Fork v10 even, if someone wants to further develop it, for free or commercially.
Really the main point is v11 is extremely late and I want it finished without resources focused looking back or being lost to scope creep. And the secondary point is people shouldn’t see core Composr developers as the start and end to the whole Composr ecosystem, that’s not realistic and there should be room for others to contribute.
And lastly I want v11 finished because it is built around a new support model that decentralizes things and promotes and rewards people who step up. I want that new model live. It is a regret of mine that with founding ocProducts and putting it at the center of the room I created kind of a “big daddy” feeling and took that oxygen out of the room for others to step up. I did it for good reasons, to provide reliability and good planning for people, but the way it was done was a mistake. It’s an emotional/perception element I had completely missed, not being very emotionally-driven personally (my sig probably still says I am a bit Vulcan).

Patrick’s post was too pessimistic, but also I have been way too optimistic, and others have been out of touch with reality in other ways. While I have babies and toddlers (now at 2, but planning for 3) I have indeed found my free time has entirely collapsed, and it was in my free time that I was able to develop Composr while bringing in money during work hours. I literally have no free time now, I have to pay for maid service, gardener services, and handymen services just to stop things falling apart around me, and have automated lots of things on my life, and even still don’t have any. There are mitigating medical reasons for this: I’ve said before how I developed health problems (I had to have surgery and am now on daily medications for life, after maybe 8 years of not getting a proper diagnosis), but also there are other issues that aren’t mine to disclose. With no free time, and increased costs, despite over 15 years with trying to make things sustainable, it proved not so.

(As an aside people don’t tell you how hard it is having young kids, because they forgot, or don’t want to be a downer, or want you to not be swayed from having kids, or because they having young kids themselves just aren’t around to share their struggle)

Very few people active in open source have young families and looking back now I can see how much a bubble Open Source can be. Everybody has unrealistic expectations derived from living a particular life and not seeing the struggles others have. Sure, I’m affected by some health issues, but most people have something impacting their life so I’m hardly special there. I look back at the old me and see how silly I was for not seeing that, and even then I feel I was one of the more level headed people in Open Source, trying to make things sustainable.

And for those that have made Open Source work as a truly sustainable career, well there are a lot of sellouts in that camp. Look to see the drama around Wordpress right now to see what VC money and corporate rule does to Open Source. Or Redis.
We never sold out.

I haven’t quit Composr. I actually have a ton of ideas. I’m a very engaged senior engineer on an extremely popular platform and have learned so much in the last couple of years I’d like to bring back here. But it is literally impossible for me to contribute anything other than some money right now. When I don’t have babies and toddlers I should have some time again. It should not be 18 years.

As for buying me back… again, let’s talk about what’s realistic and bubbles. I want to tell a story. Just after I graduated university and was working on ocPortal (old name for Composr) I took an extra curricular bootcamp from the university on business. Near the end we all put together a worksheet on how we intended to run our enterprises. I was awarded for doing the best job of it out of the class. I had said how I wasn’t trying to make ocProducts a big financial success, but rather just to have a modest living and make things sustainable. The teachers liked it because it reflected their own values. But it was stupid, because you have to reach for the stars to get to the moon for something like this. And because the world we live in now, I’m afraid just trying to be very modest isn’t going to do well by my kids, who will need to be put through college, and the quality of life I grew up with is now a whole lot more expensive so they’ll need a lot of help. And the reason for that is income inequality and I can’t let my family be on the wrong side of that: modest can’t compete when it comes to zero sum games.
I told that story just now to again highlight how people get stuck in bubbles, how people have limited perspectives even when in positions of leadership and authority. And, how much my perspective and life has changed in recent years.

To somehow buy me back to Composr so I would simply be paid to work on it, I’d need to see enough raised to secure earning a competitive salary for years, justifying me moving out of the ladder I’m currently on without it being a huge risk. We would be talking millions of dollars. Maybe just maybe Wordpress people might think what else is out there that has not been corrupted by corporate power and VC money and contribute. But it seems a long shot to say the least.
The more realistic path is for people to step up and be the change they want to see.

Hopefully this post was at least a bit interesting and inspiring. I write it from bed as I didn’t want this thread to linger.

It's a shame we're in no mans land with no ongoing v10 support (other than major issues) and no idea when v11 is going to be ready to roll, but as much as it's unfortunate it is understandable. Maybe a round of crowdfunding could ensure both versions are glorious. We might even be able to buy Chris back as the lack of Chris is also sad times.

I gave this further thought. I think we should rename Composr and several of its core components come v12. The main reason is that the names we have are being out-ranked in search engines by other similar names or companies.

I made a tracker issue where we can discuss this further: 0006144: Re-brand Composr CMS and several of its sub-systems - Composr CMS feature tracker

It is something we can discuss further; v11 is going to remain Composr considering how far along we already are in development and that the software is already in beta status.

But given the Bazaar / democratic support model starting in v11, we can bring up a proposal for others to vote on regarding the future name of the project from v12 onward. We can vote on staying Composr, going back to ocPortal, or maybe using a different name. I am reluctant to change it (at least back to ocPortal; "Composr" has been confusing as it is too close to PHP's "Composer", so I'm not as opposed to just using a new name entirely), but if a majority of the community wants to change it, then we will change it.

Patrick Schmalstig said

We will likely never use 'ocPortal' as the name again because the 'oc' was used in conjunction with ocProducts, Chris' company which has been shut down. It would also be very confusing to go back to an old name.

From “Post #10158”

Unless Chris/ocProducts didn't legally allow the usage of that name anymore (which has never seemed like the case), I don't see why ocProducts shutting down would necessarily affect the viability of ocPortal as a name. Like the website's header showed, the name stood for "Online Content Portal," "Online Community Portal," "Online Corporate Portal," "Online Collaboration Portal," "Online Commerce Portal," "Online Creative Portal," "Online Communication Portal," etc, which was quite creative and really fit how wide the scope of the project is. I'd assumed ocProducts was named after ocPortal, not the other way around.

I also very much disagree that it would be "confusing" to go back to an old name, any more than switching names in general. For one real-world example, the open-source file syncing app Syncthing once attempted to change their name to Pulse (when Ind.ie convinced the lead developer to allow them to absorb the project); the community overwhelmingly responded that the old name was better than the new one, so they went back. ocPortal/Composr has always had version numbers, so it's not as if it causes a documentation conflict. I just don't see how "the name changed to Composr for a few releases but then went back" as a footnote in the project's history would cause any real-world confusion.

I'll definitely think on the logo proposal topic and try to contribute some testing of the upgrader this year.

I would be lying if I didn't admit I am a little bit burned out. I like Composr, but being the only active developer is taking a toll on me. And unfortunately this is a far-too-common scene for developers across the Open Source community as a whole; overly-demanding, and under-appreciated.

I'd like to take a break from Composr for a couple weeks to focus on other hobby projects. But those projects don't pay my bills. So that is not an option. Therefore, I have to continue pulling through despite my mild burn-out.

That's one reason why I am hoping in the near future someone can step up, even if just a little bit, to help me progress the development of Composr, and to give me fresh perspectives. Plus, to be frank, 99% of the time, I'm working alone on Composr. And generally, I work better in team settings / with other people. So not only would there be additional people-power if more people come on board, but that will further fuel my own productivity as well.

With the switch to the Bazaar support model for v11, I'm hoping the platform will be more appropriate to allow community developers to easily step in.

I am definitely happy with how v10 turned out, largely thanks to Chris (I hopped on board in 2016 when v10 was already out). It seems to be one of the most stable CMS softwares out there. And it is still standing the test of time today. Unfortunately, v10 doesn't meet today's web standards especially regarding security and mobile support. It's still quite secure, but v11 will be even more secure. But v11 is, unfortunately, not as stable. But that's a given; it'll be like that for probably a couple years at least even after the first "stable" release. v11 needs production use and people to make light of things that were missed that need fixing before its stability can even be comparable to v10.

Regarding v10 support, I can only support it if someone is willing to fund me to support it. As explained by Chris, we dropped non-critical bug fix support for v10. But for those using v10 and want to see it continue even after v11 reaches stable (at least for the 6-month period of time I planned originally), you can either help contribute to v10 development, or fund me to do so myself. If anyone is interested, please contact me.

A lot of Open Source projects turn into proprietary ones when either a company buys the rights to the code and takes over, or the developers themselves form a proprietary company. It's very sad, but the great thing about Open Source is the ability to fork a project into a new one when that happens. It happened several times before where the original developers took a previously Open Source project and forked it into a new one so it can remain Open Source despite the company having closed-sourced the original project.

Regarding the logo on composr.app, see this forum topic: https://compo.sr/forum/forumview/browse/designing/v11-composr-logo-contest.htm . No submissions have been made yet. Maybe you could be the first? (Or anyone in this comment thread or on the site as a whole). v11 is already in beta, but because I don't know for how long, and because no submissions have been made yet, I have not announced a deadline yet.

Regarding the name, yes, it's too late in v11 development to change the name. Maybe in v12 we can consider it. The nice thing about the upcoming Bazaar model for v11 is that the community can make decisions on Composr's direction. So if you want to change its name, you can make a request for a vote on it. People can nominate some names, and then vote on the best one (including to keep it as Composr). Composr is often confused with PHP's Composer. We will likely never use 'ocPortal' as the name again because the 'oc' was used in conjunction with ocProducts, Chris' company which has been shut down. It would also be very confusing to go back to an old name.

Any little bit of help will help. Upgrade testing is a big one that will be needed. I've already been working on the upgrader. It's still a bit weird. I'm trying to think of ways to make it more efficient and intuitive.

Thank you Chris for clarifying what I have gone off of personal (educated, but flawed and biased) assumptions. Indeed we're two sides of a coin, it seems haha. Chris looks on the bright side while I'm always preparing for the dark. Anyway, point is, often what I say anywhere including here is a worse-case (not worst, but worse) scenario.

I potentially should have asked Chris first so I could present a more neutral or realistic status, but I know Chris is extremely busy, and I'd rather inform from my perspective / knowledge and let Chris comment on his own will (like he did here) than for me to bother him (unless he requests I do otherwise).

Nonetheless, Composr is still alive and kicking (at least v11 development is). And slowly, but surely, we are closing in on time for us to migrate to the new support model. I still do not have an ETA on it because there are a few complex bugs in v11 I need to sit down with (actually I just fixed one which required over 10 hours of refactoring, to give a perspective). But the general structure / ecosystem, constitution, mission / vision, and so on of the new model has been planned out (though they could use some eyeballs / feedback).

If anyone would like to give feedback on the WIP support model, please see this forum topic: https://compo.sr/forum/topicview/browse/developing/composr-v11/composr-app-support.htm

It is definitely unfortunate. My original plan was to keep v10 going for at least 6 months past v11's first stable release. But that would require ongoing funding for me to continue maintaining v10 (otherwise I wouldn't be able to afford the time to do so). And Chris rightfully does not want to fund v10 anymore beyond critical bug fixes because v10 is losing him money at this point. So it has come down to me having to shelve v10 (except when people fund me to do something for their v10 site) even though v11 is not out yet.

Crowdfunding would definitely help, but I'm not sure if enough could be raised. While I am less expensive than Chris is, it would still require at least $25 raised for every hour I spend on v10. Chris covers v11 so nothing would need to be raised for v11.

And there's definitely no way we could buy Chris back from his high-paying Silicon Valley job unless we potentially somehow got Composr CMS to be as popular as WordPress. Consider Chris no-longer with us except solely to provide guidance from time to time when he can (which unfortunately is not often, usually only a couple times per year). And I don't think that's going to change, unfortunately, except maybe in at least 18 years time, assuming Composr is still around in 18 years (just my own prediction).

The hard reality is that Composr CMS could not pay his bills anymore, especially with his life changes. And it still cannot. Not by a long mile. He got lucky that I was available and that Composr can pay my bills because I'm not married, not in a relationship so I don't have dates to pay, don't have a family to raise, don't own a house, and have minimal expenses (I just have student loans to pay off). However, if someone were to offer me a job that could provide more, then Composr would have to take a back-burner on my plate as well. But I could still probably find some time for it considering I still don't have the family factor involved.