Injader CMS project closes its doors

The Injader CMS project has decided to close it's doors for good and no longer continue producing this open source CMS. For those interested, here is the post from the Injader website announcing this decision. We wish all the best to Ben and his team:

After many, many months of consideration, I have made the tough decision to bring the Injader project to a close. The purpose of this post is to explain my reasons for ending the project, and what the future holds.
Injader started as a closed source project called Majestic, way back in May 2005. The goal of the system was to make my life easier, as I was sick of updating my sites by hand. In this respect, the project succeeded. Injader has allowed me to set up numerous blogs and websites, and it's also been used for several sites run by family and friends.

In October 2006, Lauren and I emigrated to Australia. We joined a small software company that needed a new website along with some other web-based tools. Majestic was used for this purpose and I developed it rapidly, adding various features that the company required for its operations. The system was a success here, too, and the company still uses it to this day.

By September 2007, Majestic had become a commercial product owned by Injader Pty Ltd, which Lauren and I set up. Unfortunately, this didn't work out. Gradually, the price was slashed, then we offered a free version, before finally closing the business. Majestic was rebranded as Injader, and released under an open source licence in mid 2008. Development continued, and interest picked up as the price tag was no longer a barrier to new adopters.
Once we moved back to the UK, it quickly became apparent just how much free time we had when in Australia, and how little time we had after we moved back. I've added new features and streamlined the product in a few ways (mainly due to the extremely valuable feedback from Ovi at Distinctive Quality), but some major work is required before the project can fully mature. There are many, many things that need improving, especially the code. Injader started out as a learning project to allow me to pick up PHP, and a lot of it is at least 2 years old.
Injader 2.5 was going to be a huge rewrite, and I did make some good progress. But if I'm totally honest, after spending a few of my weekends working solidly on it, I'd be surprised if it's more than 2% complete. I feel like I've done so much work on it… and yet that doesn't seem like an unrealistic estimate of how much is left to do.

So, what happens now?

Sites that are currently using Injader will not cease to exist, unless the sites are closing anyway. All of my blogs will stay as they are for the moment, at least until I can plan what to do next. I might start a new project (probably for my use only) and move those sites across to it. Or I might write an export script and put the sites on another platform. I don't know yet. If you're using Injader at the moment and you don't want to move away, that's your call, I don't mind what you choose to do. If I do write a script to move my blogs elsewhere, I'd be happy to share it on Injader.com.

As the project is open source, there is always the option for someone else to continue it. If you're a budding coder and you feel like taking on Injader, go ahead. But please understand my reasons for closing the project and that a lot of work is required to get it moving. It hasn't died – but it never really took off. If you're interested, I should point out that outside of a few queries, I really can't provide a lot of support. I can tell you how the framework was set up, the good things and bad things in the system, and what was planned for the future. I can't write any of the code though. You need to be prepared to learn the system on your own, with minimal pointers. (Honestly, I get asked to do this all the time – it's tough at first, but very rewarding if you persevere.)

I'm sure there will be a few people who are disappointed by this decision. I'm sorry if this is the case. I have been thinking about this for a while now, and I believe it is the right choice.

If you'd like to stay in touch, you can find me in the following places:

My blog: http://www.benbarden.com/

Thank you for your support over the years – it is very much appreciated. It has been an enjoyable experience and I have learned a lot.

Ben