Hello everybody ! :)
First of all, I want to simply apologize. I apologize for being away the last 3 months. I'm aware that people have a lot of questions for me... I will try to answer some of them here in this blog article
So, why are you not here when you are required, Warhawk3407 ?
Well... The main answer is simple : I don't have the time to do everything I want ! I'm studying at the University of Caen in France, in "Networking and Telecommunications" (second year). I have approximately 36 hours of courses per week from Monday to Friday. Then, add 1h30 per day for the transport. When I'm back, I have to study and do my homework (like a good boy), relax, eat, sleep, rave... So, when I come back to home after my courses, I'm not very enjoyed by the idea of programming large pieces of code for BGPanel. I prefer to watch the last episode of the Walking Dead, Person of Interest or Game of Thrones... I hope you will understand this. I think I don't have to highlight the fact that I have continuous exams, throughoutthe year and I have to prepare them. Of course, I get time to see my friends, to party, or simply to relax my eyes (otherwise I should be dead
).Along to this, at school, we have to think, plan, create and test our "final project of studies".
To put in a nutshell, we have to build a large "enterprise grade" network in order to connect multiples sites (in different towns) to each of them. We have to offer services such as VOIP calls, emails, etc. Each people of the class is attributed a task from the specifications given by our teachers. Of course we have a management team, that have to coordinate our mates in order to meet all the requirements of the specifications.
My teachers decided that I should run the project as the "Project Leader".
This project is dispatched on the whole school year. We have milestones to reach each months. As the leader, I have to coordinate the different services inside the project, help my mates on a technical aspect as well as write reports, Gantt charts...
Actually, the last free minutes I could get are swallowed by my school project.
So yes, my main problem is the time. It is hard for me to do everything in 24H with a reasonable amount of time reserved for sleeping. Bgpanel was the first impacted by this...
What about BGPanel V2 ?
My first words will be : the project is NOT abandoned or stopped. The project has been paused since the 1st January for the reasons I explained above.
The good news are the fact that I'm coming back, now. I will restart programming, slowly, but I will regularly send git commits (according to my available spare time, of course). I will reorganize my timetable in order to get a few hours for the project each week. As of the 1st April, I will have much more time to work on BGPanel, so it will speed up the advancement.
I will also try to answer your tweets or emails within the 48H they have been submitted. I will review the pending Github pull requests and see if they can be merged to to current development branch.
What's the plan for now ?
I think I will answer all the topics on the BGPanel board, even if they are old, then answer all my emails and finally, move my current bug tracking system to Github (and close the current one).
Once that stuff have been done, I will restart programming the modules of BGPanel V2.
I think it is enough for now.
One last thing before I go to bed,
I would like to thank all the people that are supporting or using my piece of software. I can't believe that it is so much used all over the world. If you type "game panel" key words, you get bgpanel as the first link. This is because you, the bgpanel community, is simply great ! Special thanks to all the contributors, the donors or simply the members on the bgpanel board that kept the light on... Even when the master is away.
Super_G2, Ryan, Alpha, thank you guys for shaking me at the right time !
See you soon on the board everybody :)
Best Regards,
Nikita ROUSSEAU - Lead Developer of the Bright Game Panel Project - A.K.A Warhawk3407
