corincerami / mars-photo-api

A Rails API for photo data from NASA's Mars Rovers
https://api.nasa.gov/#MarsPhotos
GNU General Public License v3.0
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Future Plans, Ending Support, Search for Maintainers #189

Open corincerami opened 1 year ago

corincerami commented 1 year ago

Hey y'all. I wanted to write an update about my future plans for this API, at least as far as I'm concerned.

I wrote the first version of this API back at the end of 2014, and this version has been available via NASA's Open APIs since October 8, 2015. During all of that time, I've been paying to host the API, serving as the primary maintainer for the code, and answering emails from other developers and students who use it. There have been a few people who have been really helpful with maintaining this codebase and I want to thank all of you. Whether you open issues to let me know something broke, gave me ideas for new features, opened a pull request, or helped to review other peoples' issues and code, it's all been appreciated.

That being said, I just don't have the spare time that I used to to keep maintaining this API mostly on my own. I figured 10 years would be a nice round number to end on, so on October 8, 2025 I'll be officially stepping away from this project.

That doesn't necessarily mean it will be ending, though. If someone wants to see this work continue and feels like they can handle the job of maintaining it, I'd love to hand if off and see it continue to exist.

Thanks again to everyone who's helped out with this project over the years and to everyone who has used it, whether for science, school, or fun.