Yes, I am well aware of the wonderful project by @jacobwilliams .
Indeed, I was close to Professor Powell when he was still with us. He was the Ph.D. supervisor of my Ph.D. supervisor. My research is highly influenced by his. During his final days, he asked me to maintain his code when he is not there. That said, my project is a personal promise and commitment I made to Professor Powell.
I sometimes compare my project with the job of translating/interpreting/annotating a classical work like Euclid’s Elements . Doing this, I wish to keep Powell’s solvers understandable, accessible, maintainable, and extendable to everyone, not only the experts; or, simply keep them alive. Very few people remember who translated Elements , but it is a job that must be done. I see it as my mission since Professor Powell asked me to maintain his code in his last days and I promised him that I would commit myself to the maintenance. In addition, I know Powell’s algorithms and code very well — they belong to a research area that I have been working on since my Ph.D. days.