The Future of Paho

Since October 10th, I am no longer an employee of IBM. It still comes as a surprise to me to write those words as I worked for IBM for almost my entire life in one way or another since leaving university. Now I’m just starting to get used to the idea.

It wasn’t my idea to start with, to leave IBM. Then at first, a job with another company was in the offing, but after a while that opportunity disappeared. (If you want to know more details, then if we meet in person I might divulge some more over a coffee or beer.) In the meantime, I had considered the possibility of retiring. To my surprise, I realized that it was possible to do so. It was a surprise because I had assumed I would be working until my mid-60s before I could afford to leave work.

During the preparation to leave and now that I have, I have been thinking about the future of the Eclipse Paho project. I’ve been project lead since 2014, and was one of the original contributors in 2011. My main contribution was the C MQTT client, then embedded C MQTT and MQTT-SN client libraries and Python MQTT test material. In the meantime, when there was no one else to look after the Java client library, I looked after that too.

I originally became project lead because the project progress had stalled – I stepped into the vacant space to do the job that needed doing. Since then I think it’s fair to say I have been the continuity behind Paho, ensuring its survival and success.

I intend to continue supporting and the C clients and other components I created, and also to lead the project. I hope to finish off the first release of the Java client for MQTT V5, based on the Eclipse Vert.x asynchronous event library.

Another person in IBM has been identified to help out with the Java client, project leadership and so on, but that transition didn’t start until shortly before I left so I don’t know how well that’s going to work out.

My intention is to carry on contributing, but have other personal projects and activities that I also want to pursue. Over time, undoubtedly my priorities will change, although obviously I can’t predict how.

There is a message I’d like to send to anyone or any organization has a reliance on any Eclipse Paho components or the project in general. That is, consider making contributions in some form to encourage its continued existence. The greatest contribution would be regular contributors who could become committers responsible for maintenance and updates. But I would welcome other ideas. I am also open to offers of work on MQTT related projects including Paho support.