For the last 5 years, IlohaMail has been mostly a one-man operation, with me (Ryo) being that One Man. Sure, I got lots of help and support from others, but I controlled the source and made all the decisions. One of the benefits to this "benevolent dictator" approach was that IlohaMail stayed true to my original vision, with relatively little feature creep that plagues many Open Source projects (i.e. none of that "it's a webmail that also does your laundry and builds nuclear reactors... poorly and slowly!" crap). Of course, the downside was that the project experienced periods of inactivity lasting months, where patches didn't go in, and new releases didn't go out. The last 6 months or so has been one of those periods, and it's killing IlohaMail.

So, over the last week or so, a group of dedicated community members and I have begun planning and activating a succession plan. Over the next weeks and months, IlohaMail will become more open and more community-driven. I'll still stick around and help where I can, but many of the critical tasks in maintaining, developing, and supporting IlohaMail will be taken on by members of the IlohaMail.org community.

This is a big change for me and for IlohaMail. But I am fully confident that IlohaMail, the product and the community, will improve and thrive in this new phase. Finally, if you would like to help out and take part in the ongoing discussions, please join us on the developer mailing list.

--Ryo Chijiiwa (Author, IlohaMail)