This is a wee bit old news, but it became an interesting lunchtime discussion point for me a few days ago. For those of you not in the know, Galleon was an open source project that provided additional functionality for TiVo such as music, weather, traffic, etc.
Last year, the developer of Galleon, Leon Nicholls, decided to stop development of it and move on to something new. This is another in a long line of open source applications I've used that have faded away into obscurity, and it is my biggest pet peeve with open source in general. One guy walks away and the project is dead.
For an open source application to survive beyond its original developer it has to be ridiculously popular. Galleon has quite a large user base, many of which are accomplished developers. Why is no one stepping forward to continue development? Because most people don't like doing something for nothing.
I still use Galleon and was upset when I heard it was shelved. Galleon, while functional, is far from finished. It is an excellent proof of concept but lacks the polish of a commercial application. If Leon was making money off of it, he'd certainly have a much different outlook. Sure, he won an award and that motivated him for awhile, but when the project got to the final 10% (where 90% of the work is done) he walked away. Why? Because every developer knows that the final 10% of any application is dreadfully boring work.
So I agree with Leon's decision to cut and run. He lost interest in the project and there was nothing more to gain (learn) from it. He's moved on to other technologies that will help him increase his skill set thus making him more marketable. What would be his motivation to finish Galleon? To make a bunch of people he doesn't know happy about their TiVo? Hard to pay rent with that.