I never believed it until I took on Capy Reader, but the potential burnout for passion projects is real. I’ve dealt with burnout to varying degrees in the past. My responses have ranged from just touching grass to throwing in the towel entirely. On bad days when I can’t figure out a bug, I’m closer to the latter than the former. But I think I’m onto something with this project which keeps me going.

I want Capy to be around in 10 years. I look to projects like NetNewsWire which has survived many iterations and owners but it still provides a simple and fast experience for macOS and iDevices. If I had to guess, the maintainers have also taken their time, avoided burnout, and gotten used to saying “no” or “not yet” a lot in order to keep the project alive and well.

So when I wrote a post a week ago about reworking Capy, I think I was looking for a sustainable middle ground. I heard from a few of you which was all very helpful. My plan going forward is to keep Capy the way it is without forking any other projects as a new base.

That said, I recognize that other apps - specifically ReadYou - have some good elements that could benefit Capy. I’ve decided to change Capy’s license to GPLv3. This will ensure that future inspiration (and code) I use from other projects is reflected in its licensing model. My goal in all of this is to keep building something distinct that’s useful to me, and hopefully useful to you as well.