Quote:
Originally Posted by mrmikel
John has a full time job in software. I'm just glad he stuck with it as long as he has, which has brought to its current very useable state.
I hope someone will come out of the woodwork with the interest and determination to carry it on.
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Y'know, mrmikel:
I tend to think that if anyone was going to come out of the woodwork, they already would have. The entire issue is that Sigil is OS and free; the developers are paid via contributions, solely.
At this point, it would be smarter, in my humble opinion, to make Sigil a paid product, and get it supported that way, instead of "catch as catch can." While Calibre may be supported wonderfully well, that's because it's brainless to use (no offense to Kovid, Calibre's developers/contributors, etc.). Sigil requires someone to use it who understands it. If you get tens of thousands of downloads of Calibre, and some small percentage of those contribute $5, it's a far cry from a a few thousand downloads of Sigil, 98% of whom abandon it as soon as they realize it's not a word-processor, and then some last remaining percentage of that 2% actually making contributions. John of course doesn't want to dedicate all this time, particularly for nothing or near-nothing.
Either that, or maybe we need to crowdsource it, IF we could all agree (and I don't see that happening, either) about what needs doing. The vast majority of the requests--not counting the nuttier ones--that we see are all aimed at making Sigil a word-processor that magically makes ePUBs--basically, Jutoh. Many of the more-serious users, (yes, I'm speaking about my company, specifically) don't want word-processing functions, we want things that will make the creation of quality ePUBS easier, not "click for styles" or what-have you.
I'm pondering a fork for our own use. I had figured that this would happen, but I didn't think it would be quite this soon. I'd hoped that more contributors, of
both kinds, would step up and keep it going. DAMN.
Hitch