ok so it seems I'm not quick enough for some. This is because I was
taking the time to communicate with enough people to be sure that I
could present a clear set of facts that correctly reflect the current
situation, as giving out wrong information is worse than saying nothing
at all.

whatever. I'll keep this short and to the point.

internal discussions showed that we don't currently have the manpower to
release 3.8 in a form that meets our past standards for stability and
backwards compatibility. I also made the decision that I would step back
from managing releases and ask someone else to handle that. I see my
role, after 25 years of doing this, as more administrative with the
following caveat:

I have been involved with POV since version 1 and worked with most of
the original authors - people who I have great respect for and who
surpass me in many respects. Collectively there have been tens of
thousands of hours put into this project and it has achieved a
reputation for quality and stability. I will NOT stand by and allow a
3.x release out that does not meet that same standard and if I do so I
will be letting them all down. This is a responsibility I take seriously
and I will not relent.

As long as 3.7 continues to operate as designed on modern operating
systems and CPU's it's not broken and there is no pressing need to
replace it. Yes I'd like to see 3.8 out. Yes we need help to do so. I
had decided to move development discussions to one of these groups so it
is in public and ask for assistance from users; in particular as no-one
in the current team is able to take on the job of managing the release I
was going to ask for volunteers from here.

I was prepared to ignore the negative and insulting tone of many posts
in this thread for the benefit of the project but this is enough, as it
has reminded me of one of the reasons I dislike managing open-source
projects: settling the squabbles and disagreements between contributors.
No matter whose side I take and for whatever reason someone will be
unhappy and I'll be the 'bad guy'. Looking at what I see expressed here
just reminds me I'm in for a heap more of this shit and at almost 60
years old I've had enough.

*IF* I find someone who is qualified to lead the release I'll happily
hand that of to them (and anyone reading this who thinks they are and
who know me well enough to know I'd consider them is invited to email -
you don't need to be a C++ developer).

As for the website: again I was going to post a longer explanation but
I'll simply say the box it's running on is 15 years old, on its last
legs, difficult to manage/upgrade as it's in the US and I'm not and no
longer has a working IPKVM, and does not run a CMS to speak of. I'm
loath to touch it in any meaningful way until I have it replaced. I have
recently spent several thousand dollars bringing fiber into my office
and purchasing some proper server hardware to serve as a complete
replacement and at THAT point with a real CMS and up-to-date software I
would be asking for assistance in managing the content, but not before.

And before anyone asks "why not a VM in the cloud", (a) I'm old-school
and prefer real hardware, and (b) you guys wanted to keep the NNTP
server and there's no way that software (which was built for FreeBSD v4)
will run on anything modern. I will have to make special arrangements to
keep it working on a separate machine.

Finally, about Moray: some points are valid. I wish I'd gotten it out
before now. However the source still needs auditing. Over the years I'd
had volunteers work on it (then give up) and even hired a dev once (who
then ghosted me). It's working OK I think and I was in communication
with Lutz as recently as a few months ago about finishing off
integration (we both decided we don't do enough C++ anymore to handle it
ourselves, though it's likely I could if I really wanted to). FWIW in
case anyone cares Lutz has recently added STL import/export.

I was also considering handing the source off to a volunteer to audit,
sort out some library issues, and generally polish it if they were
willing: if a reader considers they are qualified and will actually
FINISH the job please contact me and we'll talk about it. But I want to
make one thing clear to those who seem to think that I somehow 'owe' the
community a Moray release. Moray was NOT 'given' to the POV-Ray project.
I purchased it from the author. It's my property and while I have stated
I will release it under an open-source license up and until the time I
do I would ask you treat this matter with the same respect as you would
have treated it if it were still shareware owned by Lutz - you wouldn't
write him and bitch about him not releasing the source or making it
free, so don't do it to me.

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