The future of the project (imminent archival) #1640
Comments
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Hi @astrojuanlu! I want to say thank you so much for this package. It was extremely helpful to me when I was teaching orbital mechanics at the University of Connecticut. So, thank you for all the time, effort, and most importantly love for this project. On a side note, I feel so strongly the same regarding your statement from your blog about too much astrodynamics for swe and too much swe for astrodynamics. It's of course an extremely challenging problem for all these scientific computation projects. I even submitted a small patch here several years ago to fix a minor deprecation and hadn't been able to contribute after that. I wish I knew the answer 😕 |
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I have been not actively involved in a long time, but I was very saddened to hear those news. While my contribution on this project was fairly limited, I consider poliastro but you in particular to be the one "responsible" for introducing me to the Open Source space community and I wanted to at the very least publicly express how personally grateful I am for all of this. Thanks to you, Jorge and everyone else for your efforts in shaping poliastro into what it has become today. It's bittersweet to see the project facing archival but if no volunteer is found to step up to this very demanding position, I can only hope that by "ending" this chapter, other, even better things will follow. On an even more personal note, of course I lack both knowledge and time to make any broken promises on being a more active contributor (and I've also said "I can do it" in the past with full conviction, only to find out later that there are only so many hours in one day). However, I would like to ask if this archival also concerns the other projects under This is of course a project much smaller in scope, but I was very pleasantly surprised to see this take somewhat of a life of its own and - if I can be of any use - I would be glad to at least help with the open issue and merge requests. |
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Thanks a lot @Sedictious ❤️ to your point, I don't see the need to archive czml3, we can transition that project. |
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I cherish all the moments during my brief time contributing to poliastro. poliastro was lucky to have two wonderful maintainers: @astrojuanlu and @jorgepiloto. They have been some of the nicest people I have ever met. It's sad to see the current status of poliastro, especially because so many ideas were waiting to be implemented. There is only so much time to work on different things, so I think whatever decision is taken will be for the good, and something good will come out of it. Like some other people here, I would like to continue contributing to poliastro as a contributor, but I don't yet feel qualified to become anything more than that regarding my astrodynamics and software knowledge. Many of my first experiences in coding emerged while contributing to poliastro, so it definitely has had a significant impact on me ideologically. I am happy I found poliastro and feel there's lots of scope for further development, which would have been exciting to witness. I wish there would be an idea that develops this evolving library without needing fully dedicated maintainers but something like a group of part-time contributors who can occasionally take on roles similar to a maintainer. If there is any such proposal, I am definitely up for it! Thanks to everyone involved in this project. @astrojuanlu and @jorgepiloto, it has been incredible working with you! I am sure you'll do great in anything you'll choose to endeavor. I hope we get to meet sometime in the future... |
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Thanks for all your kind words across the different channels, everyone. I really like the idea of archiving the project. The reason is to protect the strong branding as @astrojuanlu mentioned. People can always fork the project and maintain it under a different name to ensure that the name of poliastro is isolated from any future development that originates from it. It has been an amazing journey! |
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Thank you @astrojuanlu and everyone involved in this project. It is sad to see the (likely) imminent end of continued development but I fully appreciate the amount of effort that goes into maintaining this and completely understand the decision. I have used a modified/augmented version of poliastro over the last years as part of a toolkit to plan (and successfully execute) CubeSat propulsive manoeuvres and differential drag station keeping. One compromise in your two options could be to, if you were to find someone who would like to continue development, archive this project but officially endorse a forked new project. That way you would keep the poliastro brand intact and freeze it as it is now, without the fear of someone taking it a direction you disagree with. At the same time you would give that new project a significant boost to kick off their journey and they could take it where they (and the community) see fit. You may still disagree with where that goes, but it would never change what poliastro is. |
That's an interesting idea @spmvoss and would definitely be open to leaving a note in the README saying "poliastro is archived, if you're looking for a similar project, consider using XYZ" Folks are welcome to list here their forks or related projects. |
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Hi @astrojuanlu, @jorgepiloto and everyone involved with the development and maintenance of poliastro. I discovered this project while looking for python libraries I could use for my BSc Physics thesis, and I got so excited when I came upon poliastro since it had some features that were exactly what I was looking for. I finished my code a couple of months ago and successfully implemented poliastro to plot the obits of near-Earth asteroids (NEAs) which I calculated using Gauss' method adapted to python. Now I have all my results and I'm currently writing my thesis (in fact, I include you in my references). I opened issues #1603 and #1629. I was very happy to see #1603 was fixed in I'll keep using poliastro since it can do what I requiere, and if need be, I'll fork it and modified it to accommodate my needs and, of course, I'll respect your project by proper attribution. While it's very sad to see the project possibly archived, I completely understand the reasons and hope the very best for both of you. Like you say: per python ad astra! |
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I hate to hear about this. I have been very interested in this library as
it provided a jump start to reinvigorate a project I have had on the shelf
for some years. I will continue to use poliastro to further expand on my
long neglected project and I am very grateful to have it in my toolkit.
Thanks so very much!
Max Whitten
…On Sat, Sep 23, 2023 at 4:47 PM joebro1907 ***@***.***> wrote:
Hi @astrojuanlu <https://github.com/astrojuanlu>, @jorgepiloto
<https://github.com/jorgepiloto> and everyone involved with the
development and maintenance of poliastro.
I discovered this project while looking for python libraries I could use
for my BSc Physics thesis, and I got so excited when I came upon poliastro
since it had some features that were exactly what I was looking for. I
finish my code a couple of months ago and successfully implemented
poliastro to plot the obits of near-Earth asteroids (NEAs) which I
calculated using Gauss' method adapted to python. Now I have all my results
and I'm currently writing my thesis (in fact, I include you in my
references).
I opened issues #1603 <#1603>
and #1629 <#1629>. I was
very happy to see #1603
<#1603> was fixed in
v0.18.dev0 and I was looking forward to see #1629
<#1629> fixed in the final
release. I don't have much experience in python (actually, this is the very
first time with the language) and I got to learn some new things while
implementing the code and debugging my implementation and looking at the
source code, so for that, I'm very grateful. I wish I had both the
experience and time to contribute and maintain this great project.
I'll keep using poliastro since it can do what I requiere, and if need be,
I'll fork it and modified it to accommodate my needs and, of course, I'll
respect your project by proper attribution.
While it's very sad to see the project possibly archived, I completely
understand the reasons and hope the very best for both of you.
Like you say: per python ad astra!
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✨ Per Python ad Astra ✨ |
Hello everyone,
After my departure as maintainer of the project https://www.poliastro.space/blog/2022/12/21/juan-luis-steps-down/ and @jorgepiloto recent decision to do the same https://www.poliastro.space/blog/2023/08/22/jorge-martinez-steps-down/, poliastro effectively has zero maintainers at the moment, and it's unlikely either of us will return in the short term, or ever.
I have been approached by various people asking about the future of the project. For purely sentimental reasons, I am most likely going to archive the repository, add a "not maintained" badge https://unmaintained.tech/, not accept any more releases on PyPI or conda-forge, and notify NumFOCUS.
There are several drawbacks to this. The project has reached some visibility and the "brand" is very recognizable (although I have very little visibility of who is using the project at the moment, or what alternatives exist), so archiving the project would mean that, if someone would want to continue its path, they would need to fork and forge a new identity. In addition, that new project would surely not have the immediate support of NumFOCUS.
At the same time, there are very strong reasons to do this. I have been very opinionated (which became a burden in the last years of the project) and at the same time I had a crisp vision of what I wanted to do with poliastro (you can just have a look at the milestones or the existing issues in this repository). poliastro is "my baby" and, even if I archive the repository, the code is MIT licensed and anyone can copy-paste it, provided that they respect the terms of the license (most importantly: retain attribution). So, beyond some upfront admin cost in setting a new brand, I don't see this as the end of the world.
The obvious alternative is to grant someone admin rights in this repository. poliastro has had many contributors apart from @jorgepiloto and myself, and there are some people that could potentially be good stewards of the project. But again, what if I dislike the new direction of the project? Or, most likely, what if someone says "I can do it", and then they don't show up? (I have been guilty of this in the past for other projects, so I completely understand that this can, and does, happen).
I'll leave this issue open for 1-2 months to give the poliastro community a voice, possibly for the last time. If you just want to leave a "thank you" note or say goodbye, that's very much encouraged and appreciated.
If I can't be persuaded otherwise, the project will be archived after that period of time.
To finish with a sweeter tone, thank you to each and every person that used, enjoyed, and contributed to poliastro ❤️
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