The http://reprap.org site has of late seemed a bit, well, dusty. The project when active seemed to have a direction, but the current vector of the 3D printing market is a bit different.
This was brought home when I updated my RSS feed reader (to Tiny Tiny RSS), and started catching up on old RSS feeds. Many of the folk who once contributed to RepRap have not posted in years, or have gone on to other things.
The current field of 3D printing is alive and well. There is much owed to the first generation of RepRap folk. But present progress is along a different vector.
I think most of the RepRap people are still around in various forms. It’s just that most of them have been hired for their expertise in the field, run their own businesses, or have just simply moved on. I’m still here - almost a decade later (2008 is about when I started). Josef Prusa was one of the core RepRap folks and he runs what is quite possibly the most successful 3D printing company in existence. The machine itself, the Prusa i3 MK3 has roots in the RepRap space.
Many many others are still here helping noobies with their commodity off-the-shelf machines, and the project has evolved so far that china got ahold of it and there’s almost no reason to actually print the parts needed to build a machine now. At $100 for an entry level machine, it’s almost cheaper to buy an entry level than to pay someone to print parts for you and go it alone.
RepRap is still alive and well - in spirit. Instead of everyone building their own machines, we’re just encouraging everyone to get into the scene. Now that just simply means that someone in China is making a machine rather than people spending frustrating months working out why their machine is never aligned properly.
@Nicholas_Seward is doing a FINE job with his designs, @shauki is constantly coming out with something new (his stuff started out with no temp control at all, for example), it’s just you’ve gotta follow the right people to see it.
Well, some of us are headed to the mid west rep rap festival so… Not dead, just different focus, less active on making things cheaper/replicated, just more accessible. Lots of great open things still running around shaking things up.