Helm development is stalled for now

[thierryvolpiatto]

See README for more infos. Only a bugfix maintenance will be done if bugs are important enough, bugs like #2079 or #2082 will be ignored.

[alphapapa]

Are you planning to announce this officially, e.g. on /r/Emacs?

Thanks for your work on Helm. I consider it an essential tool, and wouldn't want to use Emacs without it.

[thierryvolpiatto]

alphapapa notifications@github.com writes:

Are you planning to announce this officially, e.g. on /r/Emacs?

No, but if you are used to communicate on such list you can announce it.

-- Thierry

[cmccloud]

Will you be accepting pull requests for bug fixes? Regardless, thanks very much for your work. Enjoy your much deserved break.

[thierryvolpiatto]

Christopher McCloud notifications@github.com writes:

Will you be accepting pull requests for bug fixes?

Depend the pull request, all complex pull requests or pull requests that may trigger unpredictable bugs will not be merged, by experience these PR needs a lot of work for reviewing or/and after a lot of work to fix the side effect they may trigger.

Regardless, thanks very much for your work. Enjoy your much deserved break.

Thanks.

-- Thierry

[edumerco]

Just wanted to thank you for your work on helm. As a non technical emacs users, helm made things so much easier and measurable that I hope you have that much deserved break.

Thanks again... :)

If some donation could help, just say it so we can jump in.

[ReneFroger]

Thierry, we owe you a lot. I have noticed already long time ago that you're doing work for the Helm development nearly every day from 2011. I just registered to become a Patreon, and I will donate $3 each month.

Note that Helm is more downloaded than Magit from MELPA. Magit does have many contributors. And Magit does even have more donations (five times more!) than Helm.

$3 dollars, that's an amount you're already spending with some groceries each day, if not more. Let alone $3 every month. If you, and other 128 users, are reading this post now, and did the same thing, then the fundraiser should be done in 1 day and the Helm development could continue.

Please help with donating as a way to support Thierry Volpattio to keep it up with Helm. Or we perhaps we couldn't see Helm anymore to keep it up with Emacs development.

[cmccloud]

Donating as well.

[rislah]

why would I pay for someone to do development an open source package that everyone can contribute to? are you a bit idiot? "After reaching $500 per month, I should be able to work on feature requests and more, for now only basic maintainance of Helm will be done." like a child tantrum. just shows youre out for money thats it, if you want money then go to work and not beg. nobody is forcing you to do development on this package. real child

[ReneFroger]

@GoingFast don't be rude please. It's true that nobody is forcing Thierry to do development on this package. But many succesfull Emacs extensions are built by people like Thierry Volpattio. Note that Helm is already more downloaded than Magit. And Magit does even have more donations (five times more!) than Helm.

Thus given that view, the lack of donations for Helm seems to be a proper issue which should be addressed, even it's voluntary.

Though Thierry is considerably talented, he's in a situation similar to a fine artist because the market has not figured out how to value and reward the work which Thierry feel called to do. Unlike most artists, it wouldn't be difficult for Thierry Volpattio to get a well-paid job - but then he have to work on what an employer wants, rather than what a large community of people would want. So why not donate a little amount for that work?

And yes, true, why would you pay for? It's mostly voluntary work, because there is no way to wrap a business model around one of the most essential packages for Emacs.

[alphapapa]

@GoingFast Who even are you? Thierry has freely given thousands of hours of his time making Helm and other projects that he freely shares with us. Shame on you for making such a comment here. Begone.

[rislah]

@alphapapa who the fuck are u to ask me who am I? ure random so stfu and @ReneFroger I wouldnt have problem with him asking money but hes throwing a tantrum like a child and forcing ppl to pay X amount strictly every month otherwise he will drop it. Seems like guy is in financial problems so go to work and not beg and if youre serious about your claims @thierryvolpiatto then drop the development like the child you are. You others can pay if you want I will just leech off you guys then, 0 coming from me

[alphapapa]

@GoingFast You have been reported to GitHub. Do not post here again.

[ReneFroger]

GoingFast, we have taken note of your post. Please don't be rude anymore for the voluntary work that's anyone doing freely for you. As he stated it, there are not much people to contribute and he needs to prioritize his time. He's still maintaining Helm with critical bug fixes.

You have shared your thoughts, thanks. Could you stop it for now, please? Then we could focus on how to improve Helm's situation.

[rislah]

@ReneFroger I havent asked him to do anything for me, thats the difference and I really doubt anyone from majority of the user base of this package also has. Hes asking for money like I or others owe him something and throwing complete child tantrum about it, if he doesnt get X amount STRICTLY EVERY month then he will drop it. So you see where im coming from

[brotzeit]

@thierryvolpiatto I would give it a try and ask for support on reddit. If you really want to continue working on helm you have to make some noise I guess.

[thierryvolpiatto]

@brotzeit Thanks for the hint, I will consider posting on reddit if necessary.

Many thanks to all for your encouragements and contributions.

[thierryvolpiatto]

@alphapapa I see you already made a post on Reddit, many thanks for this.

[codecoll]

@thierryvolpiatto

In the reddit thread there was an idea: https://www.reddit.com/r/emacs/comments/9a68sh/helm_development_in_bugfixonly_mode_for_now/e4tjvct/

Donating for specific features, instead of for the whole project, sounds interesting. People are more likely to donate if the donation goes directly for fixing something which they care about.

You may want to consider this, like pricing difficult bugs or new features and saying you'll fix it if people donate X amount for feature Y. If a feature is important for people then they'll donate, and those features which are only important for a handful of people, so they don't have a big impact, won't attract enough donations. This system could ensure that important bugs are fixed which impact a lot of people and you would even get paid for those.

[brotzeit]

@nerton Sounds tedious to ask for support for every bigger bug and feature request.

[codecoll]

@brotzeit it's less tedious than not getting paid enough for your work, isn't it?

And users can also post bounties. E.g. with Bountysource anyone can post bounties, users donate, and developers can take the collected bounties by implementing the features: https://www.bountysource.com/

[edumerco]

@thierryvolpiatto Just donated via PayPal.

Again, thanks a lot for your hard work. :)

Best...

[thierryvolpiatto]

Eduardo Mercovich notifications@github.com writes:

@thierryvolpiatto Just donated via PayPal.

Thanks a lot!

-- Thierry

[hsribei]

I love Helm! Thank you so much for the time you've devoted to it all these years. <3

[Alexander-Shukaev]

Not a Helm user, but heard a lot of positive feedback about it and the user base speaks for itself. Thierry crearly did titanic amount of work to drive'n'thrive the project over the years and he definitely deserves additional financial support if required. Keep up the good work!

P.S. @GoingFast, STFU and GTFO, MF.

[ReneFroger]

An interesting interview about Helm is available now on Sacha Chua's blog: http://sachachua.com/blog/2018/09/interview-with-thierry-volpiatto/

[thierryvolpiatto]

Thanks all for your support!

[azzamsa]

If I got a job in the following months, helm definitely my first package to donate. I can't life without it. everyday I am surprised by many magical feature, really cut my previous x,y,z step to do thing to only one step using helm.

Can't donate for now, But I already ask Tuhdo help to put such announcement/information in his helm guide, cause many projects point to his helm guide. He agreed.

[thierryvolpiatto]

@azzamsa Thanks!

[Ambrevar]

Helm has seen a lot of improvements over the last 6 months. @thierryvolpiatto Time for 3.1? :)

[thierryvolpiatto]

Pierre Neidhardt notifications@github.com writes:

Helm has seen a lot of improvements over the last 6 months. @thierryvolpiatto Time for 3.1? :)

Yes will do soon.

-- Thierry

[thierryvolpiatto]

Relased version 3.1, thanks to all contributors and donators.

[Ambrevar]

Thank you!

[Quezion]

I only started on Emacs a couple years ago. I initially tried Ido, but saw that someone had a really cool Emacs autocomplete menu during their Clojure talk. I switched to Helm and never looked back.

Thank you @thierryvolpiatto for your vision & hard work over the years. Helm elevates my usage of Emacs & does a tremendous job of streamlining it.

(Also donated via Patreon but wanted you to get a direct "thanks" too!)

[littlehome-eugene]

I have to admit it was the first time I donated to open source maintainer.

I wouldn't be a programmer without emacs and emacs wouldn't be a emacs without helm.

Thank you @thierryvolpiatto

[thierryvolpiatto]

littlehome-eugene notifications@github.com writes:

I have to admit it was the first time I donated to open source maintainer.

I wouldn't be a programmer without emacs and emacs wouldn't be a emacs without helm.

Many thanks for supporting Helm.

-- Thierry

Get my Gnupg key: gpg --keyserver pgp.mit.edu --recv-keys 59F29997

[thierryvolpiatto]

I am closing this as it is not anymore true I stopped working in Helm, I did a lot of work in it recently. I may stop again in the future and fall back in only "maintenance mode" if I am unable to work on helm due to lack of time.