Developer ends Fornjot (CAD kernel) development
14 hours ago
- #open-source sustainability
- #software development lessons
- #project closure
- Fornjot development has ended despite early progress, as the creator realized the project would take an additional 2-3 years to deliver meaningful value, after already investing nearly 6 years.
- Key mistakes included extrapolating from early success, seeking sponsorship prematurely before having a viable product, and sticking to incremental improvements instead of prototyping.
- The creator responded to sponsorship income drops with half-measures, reducing Fornjot to a side project rather than fully committing or quitting, which contributed to the project's failure.
- The vision for Fornjot became muddled when focus shifted from a code-first CAD application to just the kernel, making it generic and less focused on specific use cases.
- Prototyping was adopted too late; after over a year of experiments, a simpler architecture was developed, but integration into the existing codebase was not completed before the project ended.