Ashfame tracked down this post that mentions our fearless leader:

What is the future of bbPress? Through the grapevine, I’ve discovered that Sam Bauers no longer works for Automattic but he is still involved with the bbPress project. How much he is involved I don’t know. It’s interesting to me because I’ve always attributed bbPress as Sam’s project but in reality, Matt Mullenweg wrote bbPress in the time span of a weekend and then handed off the project to someone else to maintain.

So if Sam is not the lead project developer, who is?

http://www.wptavern.com/forum/bbpress/860-future-bbpress-undecided.html

The clincher is that Sam is no longer listed on the automattic team page (although earlier versions of that page on archive.org show him there) : http://automattic.com/about/

So for whatever reason, it sounds like Sam has possibly moved on professionally?

Sam, if that’s the case – I just want to thank you for all of your hard work! You’ve been a real gift to the bbPress community, and we greatly appreciate your hard work and dedication.

If that’s not the case, I hope you’re having a relaxing few weeks off.

[@grassrootspa Member 15 years, 3 months ago]

I too will be saddened if Sam, indeed, has moved on.

Looking more and more like things are at a standstill:

https://trac.bbpress.org/timeline

[@johnhiler Member 15 years, 3 months ago]

Development tends to go in bursts as described here:

https://bbpress.org/forums/topic/bbpress-facebook-page#post-21553

Sam was working insanely hard before 1.0 came out, so not at all surprised that he’s taking a break!

But definitely wanted to express thanks, if Sam has indeed moved on…

[@sambauers Participant 15 years, 3 months ago]

Thanks for your gratitude, I have indeed left Automattic. I decided it was time to move on and pursue some of my own ideas and other interests.

I won’t have much time to contribute to bbPress now and I can’t report who is going to be taking over from me or if anyone is even being sought for the role.

It has been great being so involved in this project and I appreciate all the help that people have given in peer support on these forums and with the code itself.

[@gerikg Member 15 years, 3 months ago]

Thank you Sam,

What does it take to be in the committee? I want to get involved but I’m no coder. Just have ideas.

[@johnhiler Member 15 years, 3 months ago]

There’s a committee?

[@chrishajer Participant 15 years, 3 months ago]

Thanks for everything Sam.

[@gerikg Member 15 years, 3 months ago]

It feels like I need to look for a golden wrapper in my chocolate bar.

[@detective Member 15 years, 3 months ago]

Thanks, Sam, and good luck !!

[@kawauso Member 15 years, 3 months ago]

Thanks for some great code Sam

[@sambauers Participant 15 years, 3 months ago]

@gerikg

You should post your ideas on Trac, preferably after discussing them here first.

[@frooyo Member 15 years, 3 months ago]

Thanks Sam

Wow, really hope development doesn’t stop on bbPress.

I also hope the 1.0 release wasn’t rushed solely because Automattic knew Sam was about to leave.

[@chandersbs Member 15 years, 3 months ago]

I really don’t hope that too.

Wow, really hope development doesn't stop on bbPress.

[@johnhiler Member 15 years, 3 months ago]

We should be ok. Best case scenario, Automattic will bring on someone to continue developing bbPress. Worse case scenario, we can fork the code from bbPress and continue development on our own… Since WordPress is open source, maintaining cookie/user integration is definitely possible.

But we can discuss all that in a separate thread… mostly just wanted to express appreciation for Sam in this thread! He wrote a huge amount of code and chimed in a lot of threads here on the forum – thanks again!

Sam, I hope the team at Automattic appreciates how hard you worked, and just how much they lost when you stepped down!

[@divengrabber Member 15 years, 3 months ago]

thank u sam.