To Mykola

I was going through the files that make up the documentation pages for OpenCore Legacy Patcher today, stopping when I reached ISSUES-HOLD.md - a page I created to make it easier for people to understand why exactly issues and pull requests were disabled on the repository.

It reminded me of how much dedication that Mykola (more commonly known as khronokernel) has given to OpenCore Legacy Patcher over the years. I've been around since a few months after the project started, when the TUI version was still the best way to get set up and going with all of the features.

I remember when non-Metal patches were added with 0.1.1, and the community was hyped about being able to legitimately breathe new life into their decade-old machines. 0.1.7 brought Monterey to unsupported Macs, with 0.2.5 completing the GPU acceleration job. The 0.3.x releases brought more security and stability, by limiting the SIP bits disabled, fixing AMFI and Library Validation, and switching to a spoofless approach for greater compatibility. 0.4.x refined Monterey and quickly taclked bugs that were a dread to users. And now, 0.5.x and 0.6.x, bringing Ventura to unsupported Macs and repeating the cycle again.

The point is that Mykola has been doing this for over a year, making things compatible and work, leading a team of developers, testing (sometimes remotely) to get a stranger's MacBook to run the latest OS. This kind of dedication is not something that should go unnoticed.

OpenCore Legacy patcher is what got me to buy a Mac. Because I knew that even if Apple stopped supporting something that I deemed usable, he would still have my back for it. As I got more involved in the community, more involved with the stuff behind the scenes, I also saw that things that could keep him back.

And yet... he pushes on.

Now I'm a contributor for the project, and I've been able to meet Mykola on a more personal scale (a little bit, not too much though.) He's a lovely person to be around - even when I can manage to annoy him somewhat.

The whole point of this post is to say thanks. And to get others to do the same too, because OpenCore Legacy Patcher has reached so many people and brought so many machines back to life.

So, thank you Mykola! You made something amazing to use and you're still doing it, even when there might be hurdles, you always overcome them. If that isn't dedication, I don't know what is.