I got this update in my mailbox today, from a member of the Sequel team, who preferes to remain anonymous. It covers their progress, code-wise and of course, the sad news about Frans. Here's the full monty, enjoy:

"The entire sequel development team were shocked at the news from Frans last weekend. The full impact hasn't really sunk in yet and there are some decisions to be made that need a lot of consideration.

Development of Sequel has carried on with a totally new version of the elf code allowing fully dynamic linking for kernel add-ons and userland files finally being committed. Alongside this Sequel's BFS code can read from BFS volumes and some simple writes are now possible.

The biggest news was the final code committed by Frans, namely a boot loader that allows Sequel to boot from hard drives or floppies.

The code that has been committed was already in development before the shock announcement and no new work has yet been started but this weekend it is hoped that the team will arrive at a consensus about how to carry on. Once a decision has been reached we will communicate it, but we feel under no pressure to make a quick decision.

Our hearts go out to Frans and hope that this situation will have a happy outcome."

As was to be expected (from talks i have with that and other members), it's a mixed update, with some good and also bad news. A meeting will take place with all the members, and a solution concerning Sequel's future should emerge from it. If allowed, i will let you know how that turns out. Stay tuned.