The problem with niche open-source products is that you won't find enough developers to pick up development for free after they are abandoned by the original au

The problem with niche open-source products is that you won't find enough developers to pick up development for free after they are abandoned by the original authors. So, unless some company steps in to sponsor this and/or users start financing this somehow, there is a high chance that the module becomes less functional with every major release if API changes are introduced. I work fulltime on a NetBeans Platform application (for a 3rd party, not Oracle) and I know the internals of the NetBeans community but I am still waiting to see a nice community hand-over of an open-source project/module. The way I see it the limitation seems to be mostly economical -- developers need to eat too but developers are also the least likely to pay for tools.