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He didn't demand "work", he simply pointed out that hibernating or abandoning a project many people have come to rely on without arranging for others to (at lea
by enraged_camel 10y ago
He didn't demand "work", he simply pointed out that hibernating or abandoning a project many people have come to rely on without arranging for others to (at least temporarily) take over is irresponsible and causes a lot of frustration.
- lukeschlather 10y agoAnswering emails is work. It's also often a lot harder than it sounds at first blush.
- enraged_camel 10y agoSetting up auto-reply takes 10 minutes. All modern email clients allow creating auto-reply rules based on who the email is from or the words the subject line or body contain. "Thank you for your email. This is an automated reply to let you know that active development of this project is currently on hold. If you have any questions, please email bob@project.com, who is the current maintainer." That's it.
- dmuth 10y agoPretty much that. And to elaborate, there is no shame at all asking for help. I can think of a few ways in which to do this: - If you are the sole maintainer of a project, putting up a note in the README asking for a co-maintainer or someone to take over the project entirely. - Responding to emails with, "I'm swamped/I don't think I can do this right now, can you help/would you be willing take on this role?" Totally acceptable. There are lots of eager developers out there who would be willing to contribute to an open source project if they could. - Posting on HN asking if anyone is willing to help out. :-) I get that sometimes stuff happens in real life--illness, working long hours, taking care of children or family members--these are all perfectly valid reasons for not being able to put in the time needed to work on an open source project. However, the developer community cannot offer its help if said help is not asked for.