RFD #1 - Devpod Branding and Roadmap

[skevetter]

The original DevPod is a popular developer tool at nearly 15K stars. The original developer and maintainers, loft-sh (now Vcluster labs), has entirely shifted their focus towards the development of their vcluster product and has not made any recent commits or public statements regarding the status of devpod.

Despite this inactivity, the DevPod repository remains in the top results when searching for devcontainer tooling via search browser. Beyond this information and analysis for the repository traffic, I am curious to know how people are finding this forked repository. I hope some people can share their experience in the comments below.

Initially, I created this repository out of personal interest to work more with devcontainers. I did not have a larger goal at the time and was expecting to pivot to something different after a couple of weeks. Well, I have continued working to make (hopefully) some positive code changes and to publicly share that this fork is available for developers who are still interested in working with devcontainers. And, something that was important to me, providing a place for developers to make open-source contributions that would actually get merged. I am quite content with the level of engagement on this fork and on the Slack channel. It is definitely more engagement than I expected. I figured most developers had already moved on to something else or had given up entirely on DevPod (and I am sure some have).

Taking a forward-looking approach, I want to consider ways to market DevPod (or whatever it may be called) to other developers who may not be aware this fork exists. To be clear, I am not anticipating to make immediate changes. This is more about ideating a potential roadmap for actions several months down the line. Some options that I have contemplated are:

• Do nothing. Make small improvements. Let the repository grow naturally and allow PRs to continue to be submitted and merged.
• Rebrand to a different name. Currently all the search results lead to the loft-sh/devpod repository which may be detrimental for the overall health of a community-led version. Rebranding provides a fresh start to become something new.
• Something else that I have not considered yet.

I had already been thinking about the above options for some time now, but #515 prompted me to write this RFD. It's apparent that developers would like to see devpod (or a community version of it) distributed in other areas (brew/flatpak/etc.). Let me know what are your thoughts. Is the current direction sufficient? Would you like to see something separate to loft-sh?

Whichever option is eventually chosen, there is still considerable work to be done. Additionally, I am accepting interest from members in the community who want to participate in a maintainer role. I am quite flexible so you can contribute as much or as little as you like, whether it be reviewing some PRs or replying to issues. Let me know if this sounds like something you may be interested in and we can discuss more.

[fgrehm]

Hey @skevetter!

Thanks for the time you spent on this project, I only found out about devpod itself by late last year and not long ago I started using this fork.

I don't remember when exactly I noticed that the main repo was basically abandoned but by then I decided to start something new, after many iterations with claude code I came up with crib.

Coincidence or not, today was the first day I started using it for my work project and was able to iron out some UX issues and major bugs. The idea of the project is to have a very simple core as stated on the README:

crib reads your .devcontainer config, builds the container, and gets out of your way

We can potentially "do more" on top of it with some sort of plugin abstraction or something along those lines, but the core should be what's already implemented in "compliance" with the spec

I wasn't going to open source the project for a couple days but after seeing this post I think it is about time to get this out the door continue development in the public with the help of others that might be interested.

Happy to chat more if you want, here in the open or the email / linkedin listed on my site.

Cheers!

[skevetter]

This is very cool! Great work!

[joshyorko]

Tbh , your improvements are great only thing i would make the change is in the bottom left banner bring back the maintend by devpod-community vs maintained by skevetter, but totally get your reasoning. Honestly i have found your maintend version fucking fantasic. IT does what it supposed to, more options for IDES antigravity was a nice add etc. But we need that flatpak support for us immutable system folks over at Universal Blue Os and Project Bluefin.

[skevetter]

make the change is in the bottom left banner...but totally get your reasoning

I have no problem changing the banner. Earlier on, I did not want to be too presumptuous about marketing these releases as an "official" community version but rather one of the options to choose from. I have not heard any objections so far, so I will take that to mean people are okay with labeling this as the devpod-community version.

[dubinsky]

The sooner community devpod repositories move under a dedicated Github organization, the fewer ways of packaging it will need to be adjusted ;)

[skevetter]

I hear you on this point. There are still some things that I want to fix/complete as a priority before making this migration. Until I reach this point, I am still deciding what is the best action to take. Ultimately, I want to have the repositories migrated to a dedicated organization for management of maintainers/contributors.

However, I am still weighing the pros/cons of rebranding DevPod to a different name. As it stands now, the loft-sh version will always overshadow this fork. Meaning that developers looking for a devcontainer solution will first a see an abandoned software application and immediately move onto something else. They may never learn that this community fork exists. Overall, this hurts visibility and the feedback loop provided by community members.

Ideally, loft-sh/vcluster would be supportive of redirecting requests to the community fork and marking the original repository as an archive. However, I do not anticipate this happening.

[dubinsky]

There are still some things that I want to fix/complete as a priority before making this migration.
Ultimately, I want to have the repositories migrated to a dedicated organization for management of maintainers/contributors.

Understood.

Ideally, loft-sh/vcluster would be supportive of redirecting requests to the community fork and marking the original repository as an archive. However, I do not anticipate this happening.

That would be ideal...