After being mysteriously absent since this summer, Ikey Doherty has announced that he is putting the project in the hands of his collaborators "immediately and permanently".
Solus, the promising GNU / Linux distribution created from scratch in 2015, has been without the involvement of its founder, Ikey Doherty since this summer.
Solus is an independent operating system based on the Linux Kernel which was created as a successor to Solus OS and Evolveos, both being earlier creations of Ikey Doherty.
Today this system is offered in the rolling release model and implements a new package manager based on PiSi, called eopkg.
Now Ikey Doherty, the founder of the Solus project, distribution of the same name and the Budgie environment, published an open letter, where he basically says goodbye to the community and passes his powers to the development team.
Ikey doherty was a contributor to Linux Mint, later founder of the Solus OS distribution, which he ended up abandoning to focus on Evolve OS, where the Budgie desktop came from, and is once again saying goodbye to Solus.
He left Intel last year to work full-time at Solus, but then suddenly he disappeared from the project.
Ikey Doherty leaves the reins of Solus
But, while the circumstances that led to that absence remain unclear (even more strange considering that last year he left his position at Intel to dedicate himself 100% to developing Solus), Ikey doherty has confirmed in an open letter that he is well.
In the letter, which was not published on the official Solus site, Ikey Doherty says that he appreciates his team, and is very proud of them and sure they are the right people to continue with the project.
Ikey doherty also transfers "all intellectual property rights, names and brands related to the property of Solus to their collective, with immediate and permanent effect, recognizing them as official owners and project leaders ”.
In the letter there are many other explanations for topics that enter more into personal relationships than in the development of the project, but the truth is that its result does not vary: Doherty is leaving the project.
Ikey Doherty's letter
I would like to start by thanking the Solus team for all their hard work and passion over the years. In response to your recent blog post, I by no means see what they have done as a 'hostile takeover', rather a natural evolution of the project ...
I applaud their efforts in these difficult times, and I can't wait to see where they will go next. Solus is a project that will outlive us all, a tribute to immortal status built through passion and friendship ...
As a final request to the Solus team, from one who considers himself a friend, I ask that you stand firm in your cause and rise above the toxicity and politics that plague the Linux desktop world, to remain a bright beacon of hope, an example of how open source should be….
For this reason, I happily condoned their leadership of the project, and I assign all intellectual property rights, names and brands related to the Solus property to their collective with immediate and permanent effect, recognizing them as official owners and leaders of the project.
solus, it was sustained by community developers who were involved and enthusiastic about this desktop-oriented layout.
They have had some challenges since leaving, but they are working that out so the project can live on its own.
However, you are unlikely to seek a personal project involvement of any description; As a new parent, I should plan to be a parent to my child and support my family through work, rather than parent my work and trust my family to support me.
Regardless of the farewell and everything else, Solus recently released its latest version-fact stemming from this situation, apologizing for one of the project's most ambitious plans that was scrapped: moving the GNOME / GTK Budgie desktop environment to Qt.