Meta Bates

Quite often I get asked why don’t I blog more? Why don’t I tweet more? Why don’t I _fill in the blank_ more. The answer is I’m a busy man. I’m the CTO for a pre-funding startup, www.shortbord.com, the father of two adorable little boys, the lead singer of a Boston-based band, www.myspace.com/colawarvets, and that’s just the big stuff! I have to prioritize what I can spend my time on, and unfortunately some of my open source projects are the first to get the ax.

Why do the open source projects always seem to get the ax? Well, let me start by saying that they don’t always get the ax, but they certainly jump to the top of the list. There are certain libraries I’ve written, cachetastic and configatron, are the two most prominent that I use day in and day out. They will always get the love the deserve. Then there are projects like APN on Rails. I wrote it because I had an iPhone app (no longer available) that I wanted notifications for, and there was nothing else available for Ruby to do the job. The plugin took off like crazy and I was overwhelmed with patches, questions, bugs, etc… That was great, and I was happy to help, for a time, but alas, I haven’t written an iPhone app for ages, and I just don’t have time to maintain a plugin that I wasn’t even using.

A while ago I realized that the best thing for APN on Rails, myself, and for the community was to find someone to take over the project so that it got the love it deserved. I put out the call and the good folks over at PRX (Public Radio Exchange) answered the call. The folks at PRX have written some great iPhone apps, including the very popular “This American Life” app.

So I’m happy to announce that the new official home for APN on Rails is now at: http://github.com/PRX/apn_on_rails. I ask that you continue to show the same support to PRX that you have shown to me over the life of this plugin.

Again, thank you to everyone, and thank you to Rebecca Nesson and the folks over at PRX for picking up the project and giving it renewed life.

Hey there everyone, recently I have been getting a lot of requests for bug fixes and new features for the APN on Rails gem that I wrote. While I appreciate that the gem is getting a lot of use and helping a lot of people out, I, unfortunately, no longer have the time to maintain the gem.

Recent changes in my career have meant that I have moved away from doing a lot o iPhone development, and because of that I no longer have the time, nor the desire, to keep maintaining a gem I’m no longer using.

So, because of that, I would to find a new home for the APN on Rails gem so that it gets the love and attention it so desires. Are there any takers out there? Is someone willing to take on the ownership of this, apparently, very useful gem? If you are willing to take it on, please let me know and we can workout the details.

Thanks to everyone who has said good things about the gem, and I’m glad that it has helped people get to using push notifications quicker, hopefully, one of you can take this project and run with it. Thanks again.