README FIRST: Current state of this application

[a1aw]

You might be redirected to this page because you found bug or you have a feature request for the software. It is important for you to spend sometime to read this for a while:

At the time of writing, this project is already 5 years old and getting to become 6 years old very soon. I was just a super beginner in programming 5 years ago and now I figured out this project is really getting hard to be maintained right now. These are the problems I am facing.

1. Too many updates and changes of its dependencies during these 5 years

• Things such as Java 8 are deprecated, JavaFX is gone to be OpenJavaFX etc.

2. This software uses Java

• which is not good at all in terms of performance and regular activation of the application. The optimal language should be C#, but rewriting this software into another language would be a hassle to me and I cannot get any advantages from it because I have stopped playing this game for so long.

3. JRE is embedded into the application

• since the osumer2 Overlay depends on the native JNI libraries from the Java Runtime
• JRE updates so frequently right now.
  • I have to track updates very frequently and update the embedded to fix Java security vulnerabilities
• There is actually a possible legal issue right now after the change of the Java license.

4. There are tons of unnecessary codes from 1.0.0 still exist in the project not cleaned up.

• osumer-installer is not used at all

5. Bad compilation and packaging system

• Updating a single code and releasing it is a total mess. The application depends on three different build system and can be only done by hand
• No Continuous Integration (CI) and unit tests can be performed at all.

6. Frequent updates to osu! website

• A single update to the website could break the whole software immediately.
• It is actually not hard to fix but could be annoying due to the point No.5 and No.8

7. Unable for anyone to takeover this project and I am only maintainer

• I can say, this project has zero documentation and superbly low possibility for anyone to contribute, unless I can fix the No.4 and No.5.

8. Busy worklife and I have no advantages that can be gained from my contributions.

• Busy worklife simply makes me putting this project to a very low priority.
• This is how open-source project works, and I am volunteering myself to maintain this project for a long time.

I understand there's still a number of people using this software and it stopped working since the last changes to the osu! website. However, I am starting to have a hard time maintaining this application starting from last year. If there is a bug, you might need to expect it needs like 7 days to 1-2 month for the single bug to be fixed.

I might be able to continue and prioritize the development by receiving donations but it seems to be a bit hard to establish the GitHub sponsorship programme. I will keep trying whether it will work at all.

Thank you for using and supporting the software for over 5 years!