Some of you thought this project was dead due to inactivity in the last weeks. Well, now you know this isn't true.
I've been making the preparations to make this project open source. There are various reasons for me for doing this:
-lack of time (blame university)
-it does not have an end, due to the nature of this project, there would never be a point in time where this project would have virtually nothing to add or update
-providing support: apart from all the above, I still have to provide support too!
-the pressure: so you can see now that this project took a lot of time, but apart from that there's the constant need to provide updates, and although people did notify me of new drivers, it's still me who has to make sure nothing breaks, plus there's the constant struggle against time
-I'm not a hypocrite: lack of financial appreciation, some (see below) have been very generous, while the majority did not give anything in return. Whatever you may think, some financial revenue is very welcome to every donationware developer! One might say that we donationware blindly trust that our users that they will support us financially if we have a product that works as expected. (Before criticizing this, I can tell you that approximately 95% of all installations are flawless, the failed 5% is mostly exotic hardware or bad drivers.) So please support not only this project, but also AutoImage and RVM Integrator/Windows XP PowerPacker!
All of this is enough to make the decision final. I was first planning to only open source the Finisher initially, but I've decided to open up everything at once.
Everything is open source, but not in the litteral meaning of the word. It's open source, but invite-only. I chose to do it this way to maintain a defined quality level. If you want to joing either of the teams (the Main Team, Code Team, DriverPacks Team, Testing Team or Translations Team), just contact any one of the Main Team in the forum and we'll see if you qualify. Basically every body qualifies who knows what he's doing. No übertalents or huge sacrifices are asked, you contribute when you want to.
UPDATE: I forgot to reference the license! You can view it here!
I'll still be very active to get things running on their own. Any one on any of the teams will be able to contact me to know how things should be done, or how they could change it.
Donations will initially still be going to me (not that there are many...), and once most things are done by others, they will be the ones that decide what will be done with the money. Either it'll be distributed amongst the contributors, or it will be used to pay for whatever is considered necessary: virtual private server, (web) software, etc.
So far the announcement. But I'd like to use this event as an opportunity to thank those who have been very supportive, either financially, by their knowledge or by their encouragements, or any combination of those. In order of appearance (well... as I could remember it):
-prathapml: he has helped me alot in the first days of this project, and has helped me a lot with my initial ideas.
-RyanVM: when he lost motivation for his original "Storage Pack", I continued where he stopped and that's now DriverPack MassStorage. His UpdatePacks project is an established value in the wonderful (?) world of Windows deployment and a true time saver.
-muiz: he was so kind to send me a CPU and RAM for a local server, on which I'm hosting the Subversion server used for the source code. Additionally, he sent me a financial donation as well! He might be messing around sometimes, but he means it well. He's a member of the DriverPacks Team.
-djbe: I met him at the MSFN.org forums and after some chatting it appeared that he lived very close to where I live...! He has written Fedit.exe and uni2ansi.exe, two tools the DriverPacks BASE could not live without. Bigger plans by the two of us were planned, but due to time restrictions they were not conceived...
-Siginet: he runs a pc shop, develops several programs most of which you probably know (RVM Integrator and Windows XP PowerPacker). The DriverPacks BASE is also already using his code for OS detection (it's quite complex and by far superior to my original code). He's a member of the Main Team.
-gilesw: somebody who has not been very active in the past months, but before that he was THE 3rd party DriverPacks man. I think he had/has a job comparable to twig123's. He also sent me a kind donation.
-RogueSpear: he's a Windows deployment consultant and has been using the DriverPacks for quite some time now. He has not only donated generously, but has also helped me very much the past months in too many things to name. He's a member of the Main team.
-twig123: One of the most generous donators ever! But he does have a reason for it: he has installed several hundreds of computers using the DriverPacks for his job as a computer repair technician. Aside from that, he's been maintaining and restructuring several 3rd party DriverPacks. It won't amaze you that he's also a member of the DriverPacks team then!
-and many others... sorry if you have been very active 'in the scene' and you were not mentioned here! My memory tends to forget some things that should not be forgotten...
So as most of you can see: those who contributed most already, were also the most generous people. One might expect it to be the other way around. But fear not, you can still make that up!
If you either work for a company or have your own, and you have used the DriverPacks in professional environments, then please contact me if I may add you as a reference to my resume! This would be very very very very much appreciated!
Just a bit patience 