Happy Holidays! (Patreon)

While I'm wrapping up the work for the year, let me wish you all happy holidays and a happy new year! 

Just like 2020, 2021 has sadly been overshadowed by the pandemic, and I for one can really use some time to recharge the batteries again. Between the usual workload, pandemic related worries, having to watch a beloved pet pass the rainbow bridge, a knee surgery and all that, it's been one heck of a draining year 😶

But there's been a ton of positive things that happened as well! 2021 saw two full OctoPrint releases (1.6.0 and 1.7.0), four point releases (1.5.1, 1.6.1, 1.7.1, 1.7.2) and all-in-all six release candidates between them (1.6.0rc1, 2, 3, 1.7.0rc1, 2, 3). I built a new tool (CustoPiZer) that now ensures that you'll always get the latest OctoPrint with your flashed OctoPi image. The RPi Zero 2 was released and turned out to be an amazing device for running OctoPrint, which at least two thousand instances are now based on. Feel free to see for yourself on the relaunched data.octoprint.org :) After the release of OctoPi 0.18.0 which shipped with Python 3 as OctoPrint's runtime environment and some push from plugin authors and also a friendly nudge in 1.7.0+ we now finally see Python 3 adoption at 70% and rising, which is incredibly good news should the now almost two years EOL Python 2 proof to become impossible to support anymore in future releases, even before 2.0. And last but not least, the introduction of a systeminfo bundle together with bundleviewer.octoprint.org has helped tremendously in troubleshooting and bug analysis, even more so than I hoped for!

On a more personal note I was able to attend three Python conferences this year (PyCascades, EuroPython and PyCon US), even spoke at one of them (about OctoPrint of course) and was able to learn a ton that will help with the future development. I also got a chance to talk at Tidelift's Upstream Conference about some of the negative sides of running an Open Source Project and helping other maintainers this way, and got a chance to present at GitHub Universe about CustoPiZer! Finally, I found myself being awarded the "GitHub Star of the Year" Award, which I still struggle to believe 😅 

It's been a wild ride of a year, and I'm utterly grateful that you've shared it with me, and that you continue to support my work and my dedication to keep making OctoPrint better and better!  💕

I'll be back in 2022 to continue this journey. Until then, as always, stay healthy and happy printing 😊

~ Gina 🎄