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If maintainers have withdrawn from the project, may be it should be forked by those who are ready to contribute?

by shmerl 6y ago

pferde 6y ago
It should, and it likely will be, since it is a popular piece of software. However, it is usually better to ask the maintainer to step down and continue his work without forking it. That saves everybody (distro packagers, users) a lot of time and effort.
- dependenttypes 6y ago
  > and continue his work without forking it This is how you get in the same situation as uBlock.
  - anoncake 6y ago
    Are there any other examples?
  - pferde 6y ago
    Yes, in rare, flukish circumstances. Most of the time, there are no issues.
makerofspoons 6y ago
Is there a way on GitHub to filter by most active forks? All I get when I click on the Forks page is this warning: "Woah, this network is huge! We’re showing only some of this network’s repositories." This would be valuable for a number of projects that have been abandoned or see infrequent updates while a fork (that usually has to be found by word of mouth or Google) is significantly more active.
- chrisdalke 6y ago
  I wish GitHub had a better interface to browse forks, right now it just displays a single list and requires you to search through individual forks to find any meaningful changes. They also featured "fork this project" prominently for a while leading to many novice Git users forking projects unnecessarily, which pollutes the list of forks.
  - ourcat 6y ago
    Agreed. That interface could be so much easier to navigate. Might be easier on a touch interface. Even some simple ordering by recency of activity would be a vast improvement. Or some 'momentum' to the scrolling of the tree.
rightbyte 6y ago
I guess it is quite hard to get traction on a branch compared to take over the original project. "17,727 commits" It most feel quite futile to keep up with breaking changes from Youtube's side in the long run? Maybe they should be more liberal in what contributors they accept. Seems like two guys did the most commits.
- detaro 6y ago
  that's not just youtube. youtube-dl supports a lot of sites.

If maintainers have withdrawn from the project, may be it should be forked by those who are ready to contribute?

by shmerl 6y ago

If maintainers have withdrawn from the project, may be it should be forked by those who are ready to contribute?

It should, and it likely will be, since it is a popular piece of software. However, it is usually better to ask the maintainer to step down and continue his work without forking it. That saves everybody (distro packagers, users) a lot of time and effort.

dependenttypes 6y ago
> and continue his work without forking it This is how you get in the same situation as uBlock.
- anoncake 6y ago
  Are there any other examples?
- pferde 6y ago
  Yes, in rare, flukish circumstances. Most of the time, there are no issues.

makerofspoons 6y ago

Is there a way on GitHub to filter by most active forks? All I get when I click on the Forks page is this warning: "Woah, this network is huge! We’re showing only some of this network’s repositories." This would be valuable for a number of projects that have been abandoned or see infrequent updates while a fork (that usually has to be found by word of mouth or Google) is significantly more active.

chrisdalke 6y ago
I wish GitHub had a better interface to browse forks, right now it just displays a single list and requires you to search through individual forks to find any meaningful changes. They also featured "fork this project" prominently for a while leading to many novice Git users forking projects unnecessarily, which pollutes the list of forks.
- ourcat 6y ago
  Agreed. That interface could be so much easier to navigate. Might be easier on a touch interface. Even some simple ordering by recency of activity would be a vast improvement. Or some 'momentum' to the scrolling of the tree.

rightbyte 6y ago

I guess it is quite hard to get traction on a branch compared to take over the original project. "17,727 commits" It most feel quite futile to keep up with breaking changes from Youtube's side in the long run? Maybe they should be more liberal in what contributors they accept. Seems like two guys did the most commits.

detaro 6y ago
that's not just youtube. youtube-dl supports a lot of sites.