rarbg

Today, during lunch break, I was surprised to find a couple of notifications in by inbox, and I saw I had been mentioned in a some comments to this post in !lemmyapps@lemmy.world. Like it or not, this is a piece of news which can not and should not be ignored.

Here are a couple of considerations about it:

Markdown rendering has never been a priority for this app, so less frequent features like strikethrough, superscript, subscripts, footnotes, tables, etc. are known to not be rendered well or supported at all, given that the library we are using does not support them either, and it is not thought to be customized easily (even for the simplest things like images and spoilers). I've had a talk with the maintainer of this library but he's some random guy who happens to maintain it in his spare time and no support could be expected;

this project was born as an experimentation, it is clearly stated in the README. md and the technologies it is built upon (Kotlin Multiplatform and Compose Multiplatform) are not mature, non entirely production ready and ever evolving; which is something I enjoyed because it challenges me to keep learning, but again there are compromises to accept;

1, as well as all those who contributed so far with code/translations/artwork, have been working to this in our spare time, with no compensation, no formal commitment and no quality of service to guarantee whatsoever;

the benchmark took into consideration just one aspect and not the totality of the features each application offers; it considered a limited set of apps (why were some included and some others were not); and the criteria on how points were assigned were not clear at to the time of writing they have not been disclosed yet.

Those who have seen my approach to this project, either because they have collaborated or because they have submitted feedback, know that I try to do my best to create a "decent" client for Lemmy, that I try to address everyone's issues and and make everyone feel important and feel at home in a friendly environment, as well as that I have not been hiding behind a nickname and have put my real face and my real name in my software, because I believe you should trust the people who write the code that runs on your devices.

I find myself in a very uncomfortable situation right now because, after revealing my personal information as the project owner, the current circumstances create a real damage to my public image as a professional and as a person. My coworkers, my managers, my employers (current and future) can see all of this and my personal reputation is compromised.

At the moment, I think I need some time to decide what to do. The most likely option would be to delete the repository, unpublish the app from the stores, and hope that, in the future, some of the forks people made in the past can be used to create something better in the future. Another option would be that the project continues but with a different leadership and no association to any personal account.

In the meantime, I want to thank one last time all those who contributed so far with code commits, translations, artwork, bug reports, suggestions, feedback and encouragement. It has been a pleasant journey the one we travelled together.

As always: Live Fast Eat Trash