He did not "leave" the project, but is busy (for several months) with Pyra. Joerg hinted at the situation in this post on tmo:
http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?p=1502058
Though I can see how this could have been ambiguous.

In any case, the issue was discussed extensively on #neo900. This is the first mention I could find:
http://irclog.whitequark.org/neo900/2016-01-29#15341340

Nikolaus mentioned his (un)availability situation here:
http://lists.goldelico.com/pipermail...ch/001383.html

Joerg made some attempts to use the regular layout functionality of Eagle, i.e., mainly the autorouter, but that ultimately only confirmed that Eagle (without Nikolaus' private tools) was not suitable for the task.

There were other things to work on while the layout situation was stalled, e.g., sourcing, mechanical, and also some component issues, but that of course did little to bring v2 closer. So I'm rather happy that we can finally continue progressing with what is in our "critical path", even if the other things are of course important as well.

- Werner