When will spark update?

[pwebb]

Is there an ETA on when a new version of Spark will be coming out? I see that Spark 2.9 is in the works but it’s been three years since Spark 2.8.3 was released so I’m just curious if there is an ETA. It seems like the OpenFire receives almost monthly updates.

[wroot]

No ETA. There are no developers working on Spark.

Spark - Developers needed

You might have noticed that last official release of Spark client was more than two years ago (January 29, 2017). Many have questions about the future of Spark, so i decided to explain a few things and also draw some attention to this project. TL;DR: there are no active developers working on Spark for some time and there is a number of big issues in the current code blocking new releases. A bit of history: Spark has been abandoned a few times in the past. When JiveSoftware released its source…

[guus]

Hi Paul - you’re right, we have more resources for Openfire than for Spark. That’s primarily caused by two reasons:

• Those developers that are currently active have more experience with, and interest in Openfire.
• The broader community is providing more resources (in the form of development, pull requests, but also commissions) to be worked on Openfire than on Spark.

There certainly is an ongoing interest to update Spark, but as things stand now, we’re short on resources. I’d like to re-iterate @wroot’s call for help in this respect: we’d be mostly helped with developers that can contribute to the code. The second best thing is to have commissioned work - as that will allow existing developers (that are also making a living with coding) to re-prioritize their efforts).