Situation of FPC/Laz Team? lazarus / 21-General ---------------------------------------------------------------------- krolikbest · 2024-01-03 09:02 Hi, As an active developer who has decided to bind application development using this environment and language I 'd like to ask how does actually the situation of FPC/Laz Team look like? Lately I read in one of fresh thread (probably about so called AI), where @marcov said that lack of people to do stuff and tests is concerning. I agree; how many active developers are there who want to support and develop Lazarus? Few months ago I saw the Roadmap of development (very ambitious) and is it still valid? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Martin_fr · 2024-01-03 16:36 You can look at the member list of both projects on GitLab. And also check the amount of commits made. IMHO, both projects are active, and have enough members to keep them maintained, and add features. (and have done so since long ago and up until right now, and still going / just look at release notes, or git logs) But, when it comes to adding features, it isn't simply a matter of "how many". You need to keep in mind, that each member is a volunteer. The projects aren't driven by a big business that decides "Oh, we need this or that, because it will be good [for marketing]". They are driven by each members desire to keep the project going. And each member has their own point of view, how to best achieve that (within the collaborative view of the team as a whole) This concept has kept countless open source projects alive (bigger ones, smaller ones, ...). So it is reasonable to believe it will keep Fpc and Lazarus alive too. As for any ONE specific feature, it does not matter if the project has 5 or 50 or 500 members/contributors. It does matter, if at least 1 of those members has the time, the interest, the skill, ... to implement and maintain that feature (bit more complicated... open source or other, free or commercial, projects and/or companies always need to set boundaries, to ensure future maintainability, and it doesn't only depend on the availability of one (or N) team-members). Also, features can be contributed by anyone. But then, if they need to become part of the project, they need someone in the team who volunteers to accept them (and be in the bounds mentioned above) and look after future maintenance. But often, features can be done as add- ons. A separate package, that can be added to the project, and is entirely in the hand of a 3rd party contributor. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- krolikbest · 2024-01-03 18:21 Quote from: Martin_fr on January 03, 2024, 05:36:35 pmIMHO, both projects are active, and have enough members to keep them maintained, and add features. (and have done so since long ago and up until right now, and still going / just look at release notes, or git logs) That's good to know, Thank you.