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Of course it's terrible to become burnt out and it feels awful not having enough time to work on an open source project that you love. But, is it just me or ha

Of course it's terrible to become burnt out and it feels awful not having enough time to work on an open source project that you love. But, is it just me or has it become rarer for open source project maintainers to feel free to let projects go? I don't mean to let them die, I mean, to find like-minded individuals to which you can defer some or all of the work? I realize that as the original author one feels a sense of ownership, but if you want it to continue, and you don't have the time, there is nothing wrong with putting out a call for someone to take over maintainership. Most projects that I've maintained have been my own work but I've also taken over maintainership from someone on a popular project, and it was a great experience. I got to work with a good code base, add my own ideas, offer some direction, and I learned a lot about maintaining code for longevity, integrating community contributions, and I cared about it probably more than I have for much of my own work, because I felt that I owed it to the original author to do a good job. Now, several years later, I do not use it myself as much, and I am perfectly ready to find a new maintainer for it, should someone appropriate come along. (That hasn't happened but the project no longer takes a lot of my time. since new solutions have come along, so it's fine. If it did take more time, it would mean there were more users, and therefore probably there would be more interested parties in taking over maintainership.) I encourage authors and maintainers who are feeling they are reaching this burnout stage to feel more comfortable putting out requests for help, it can be a good experience and even encourage community building around your work. You don't have to be a BDFL, you can be a temporary one.

robin_reala 5y ago
I think part of the worry of handing projects over stems from a couple of fairly high-profile events when projects were handed over to theoretically trust-worthy people who went rogue and used them as a platform for malware or spear phishing. Suddenly, even just relinquishing control can be a bad thing for the community.
- antran22 5y ago
  The thing is, if the new project maintainers go against the community, but the community really need to use it, the community will just fork out a new path and move on. If the project is really open source.
  - ChrisMarshallNY 5y ago
    I don’t think that really happens, anymore. Twenty years ago, they would have done that, but these days, someone would just write a replacement from scratch (quite possibly, proprietary), or everyone would abandon it, along with their own projects that depend on it. Most open-source (and closed-source) APIs and SDKs are “Swiss Army knife” projects, with many functions that serve many purposes. Most API consumers use only a subset of the interface, so “rolling their own” is not that intimidating. I think with all the security problems that we’re seeing, these days, we may be headed for some agency/consortium that validates dependencies (with all the myriad problems, therein). We may be seeing more “semi-proprietary” stuff, soon. Not necessarily a bad thing, as I think that anyone that makes money on software should probably pay for it.
    - antran22 5y ago
      I think we are straying from the point of FOSS once we talk about money. If I start a new open source project, it will be my gift to the world, and I expect to gain nothing from it financially. If Google make a billion bucks from my project then I'm sure some other dudes running a startup is using it too, and if my project helps them then I'm happy. If my help is not appreciated, lotsa luck gentlemen ;) As I have made my point before, if all I want is money I would spend my time working a paying job. But money is not everything isn't it?
      - ChrisMarshallNY 5y ago
        Preaching to the choir, here. Take a gander at my work. But making things that other people depend on is an obligation; not just a vocation. I liken writing an SDK/API/library to having children. Once they are there, they aren't really my "property" anymore, and I am under an obligation to maintain and support them, so I need to keep that in mind, when I publish them. I need to play the long game. I've written a system that is used by thousands, around the world, and is the backbone infrastructure for a particular demographic. It is not hyperbole to say that lives depend on it. I worked on it for ten years, before transferring it. The best thing that I ever did for that system was toss the keys to a new team, and walk away. Nowadays, I'm just the dorky old man that chips in his two cents' worth, from time to time. I'm not particularly interested in getting into religious battles, which is fairly common in the [F]OSS community. I mostly code for the love of the craft. Delivering and supporting open-source projects helps me to have a purpose, but I also take my obligations quite seriously. One of those obligations is to go to great lengths to deliver very high-quality software. I'm quite aware that it is not commercially feasible to write software that meets my personal Quality bar, so I give it away for free,
- mavhc 5y ago
  What's really required is to build a community large enough that the 0.1% of people who can run it are big enough to have a group in charge, set up a foundation etc etc. It's just like going from a monarchy to a democracy, hard, takes ages, fails a lot. That won't work for most small projects though, so orgs like https://sfconservancy.org/ https://sfconservancy.org/ exist. Not sure what other options like SFC exist, and the differences between them though. At a minimum you'd want them to be in charge, and fire the current lead developer if they go rogue.
yarcob 5y ago
I maintain two slightly popular open source apps, and my experience is that there are a lot of people interested in using your product, but very few people interested in contributing to it. I've had a few people offer help over the course of the years, but unfortunately they don't always have all the skills needed, so they can only help with a part of the project. When they do have the necessary skills, they don't have the time. As I don't have the time to keep working on both projects for free, I'll probably abandon the lesser used one. I'd love to find a successor for the second project, but to be honest I don't have any idea how to go about finding that person. (I don't want to post specifics of the projects because I'm trying not to link this account with my real world identity)
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- cheph 5y ago
  > I've had a few people offer help over the course of the years, but unfortunately they don't always have all the skills needed, so they can only help with a part of the project. So whats wrong with allowing them to help with those parts?
  - bleepleblopple 5y ago
    Allowing people to help also takes time...there's a non-trivial management effort involved...one that's too frequently forgotten about in these discussions.
    - jckahn 5y ago
      This is very true. Even when collaborating with very skilled engineers, it takes a lot of time and energy to respond to ideas, questions, and review PRs. It’s like a regular programming job to a certain degree, but you’re typically not paid for doing it.
      - cheph 5y ago
cheph 5y ago
> But, is it just me or has it become rarer for open source project maintainers to feel free to let projects go? I think it has always been rare. I generally avoid projects which are under a person's own github account because to me it is a massive red flag that they will kill the project by failing to maintain it and failing to hand it over at some point in time. When you build a project the most important part is to eliminate dependency on yourself. If you are approving all commits, or doing most changes, you need to fix it, because it is a problem. I don't really understand pedronauck's response. If he does not have time, he should tell people he does not have time and they should make PRs, is that not the point of open source projects? There is nothing wrong with demanding that people help themselves, people are not entitled to your time, and unless you are not processing PRs then you are not the problem.
- hnlmorg 5y ago
  In an ideal world you're right. But most people don't create projects expecting -- or even wanting -- huge success. 1. Sometimes people create a project for themselves but use Github as a convenient place to store the code. I've done that before and found people filing issues against those projects. 2. Sometimes people create a project to scratch a personal itch and put it online in case it helps anyone else. Not in the sense of hoping people will use it but rather than in the "I bought 10 bottles of wine and only drank 9. Help yourselves to the last bottle" sense. Maybe there should be (maybe there already is) a software license that should better explain the "wrote this for myself. You're free to use it but don't expect support". 3. Some people probably do hope that their project has some, maybe even just small, degree of success but they host in their own user profile because their Github profile is their CV and they're starting new projects in the hope of landing better jobs. This 3rd group are a particular problem for open source. Not in the sense that they're doing anything wrong -- they're clearly not. But in the sense that you end up with a lot of NIH since the primary reason for a project existing is to boost the CV. So when the primary maintainer moves on, any future contributors will prefer to build their own solution rather for their own CV rather than taking over maintenance of the existing project. --- It should also be noted that not all projects are large enough to warrant their own Github org. Take BurntSushi's stuff. I'd wager the percentage of HN developers who use BurntSushi's code is in the double figures. But there'd be no sense in every one of his projects being it's own org.
fxtentacle 5y ago
In my opinion, there's just a shortage of experienced engineers. Everyone these days is chasing the latest Javascript framework hype and practicing the next big modern language, e.g. Rust or Go. But most important infrastructure open source is written in C++ and to maintain a cross-platform library linked into hundreds of apps, you need years of practical working experience to accurately estimate the side effects down the line from a seemingly innocent patch. There's few people who have that experience. Plus as the greybeards retire, more and more companies need to hire this kind of developer to keep their own stuff running. So the people who could do open source usually have a waiting list for future freelancing clients.
- pjmlp 5y ago
  As greybeard, I see the golden age of FOSS like disco/hippie days, eventually the majority that was against the man ended up working at wall street like jobs during the 80's and early 90s. Same will happen when everyone that actually made BSD and GNU happen is no longer around, it will be business as usual.
GuB-42 5y ago
Often a project, a club, or even a company only hold because of one passionate individual. Once he is gone, it is the end. It is very hard to find someone with the same level of motivation. Projects stop being maintained, clubs cease activities, and companies get taken over for short term profit. It is particularly apparent in schools. Students start something, then they graduate and do something else. Most of the times, no one takes over, at least not in a sustainable way. It is not always the case, but it is the most common outcome. Simply, I think there are simply more people who want to start something than there are people who want to lead somebody else's project.
- icoder 5y ago
  To maintain something you will need a match between what type of person is needed and what type of person is available. To start something, any type (well, very simply put) of person will do, often the need emerges from what they initiate. This may also explain the imbalance you see. Having said that, I also think that just as often it _seems_ no one is available, until someone steps down and things do turn out allright. Of course this idea that a project will stop if the passionate individual stops is based on exactly the observation you describe! So that fuels the idea but you'll never know until you stop.
- marcosdumay 5y ago
  I don't know how the idea that people are replaceable got so popular. Yeah, I know why some people tried to make it so, but it's so blatantly false that I don't understand how those people were successful. Anyway, nobody ever simply gets replaced. When you change the people, things change. Some times it's a disaster, other times it's an improvement, but the result is never exactly like the beginning.
- chrchang523 5y ago
  There is an interesting "converse" to this observation for open-source projects, though. Namely: if a nontrivial abandoned project is still widely used, it probably represents a major career opportunity for anyone willing to take over maintenance. This isn't purely hypothetical: it's the foundation of my own career.
wccrawford 5y ago
"I don't mean to let them die, I mean, to find like-minded individuals to which you can defer some or all of the work?" I've seen lots of these calls for help fail. And someone else points out: It's open source. Literally anyone can continue the work at any time. There's no need for the original creator to find someone else to continue it. Anyone can just do it.
- sokoloff 5y ago
  There’s a community aspect to consider though. You and I could both decide to continue some open-source project. The community will (reasonably and maybe even “rightly”) look to the original maintainer for guidance on which 0, 1, or 2 forks they suggest to continue.
  - icoder 5y ago
    Sure, one thing (it being OK to drop an already open source project) doesn't exclude the other (suggesting a fork if there happen to be any).
  - gmueckl 5y ago
    It's even worse with other patterns, e.g. when the original project is suffering from some bit rot, the maintainer is unresponsive for months, independent forks spring up to fix that rot and suddenly you get a bout of activity in the original project and then another lengthy period of silence.
    - josephg 5y ago
      Yep. I think its important for project maintainers to be clear about the maintenance status of a project. You don't have to maintain a project forever, but if its not maintained its good to be clear about that. Eg: "This project works but will not be maintained. Github issues & PRs will be ignored. If you want changes, fork the project. If your fork is being actively maintained, let me know and I'll link to your fork from this readme."
    - beckingz 5y ago
mschuster91 5y ago
> But, is it just me or has it become rarer for open source project maintainers to feel free to let projects go? I don't mean to let them die, I mean, to find like-minded individuals to which you can defer some or all of the work? There are few projects that actually get used for longer than a couple years at most, the churn (especially in JS projects) is massive. You'll always find people to work on Big Old Stuff that's used everywhere - think Linux kernel, Qt/KDE, Gnome, Firefox, Thunderbird, libc, gcc, LLVM, jQuery, ReactJS - but the small stuff that gets disrupted ehhh replaced by some shinier newer toy? That will eventually diminish and die off, when the original author either has all their needs met, burns out or no longer needs the project. Additionally, all of the above projects have massive financial firepower and/or other institutional backing behind them that contributes either with direct man hours or financial grants.
genezeta 5y ago
I'm not sure if it's "become" rare or rarer. But in a way Github, npm, or maybe it was just ourselves in general... but we seem to have promoted the idea of "build it and they will come" to an unrealistic level. While interested people will come, I think it is rare that a distant and complete stranger will suddenly appear and not only share your same interests but also with the same level of compromise. And given that some projects now seem to suffer sudden popularity growths as flavour of the month -or week-, it would also be rare that such a person or persons would appear before that happens and the pressure suddenly increases.
c-cube 5y ago
A temporary BDFL... Would that be called a TBD (temporary benevolent dictator)? :)
- detaro 5y ago
  Shouldn't it be BTD? Somehow that word order feels better.
  - account42 5y ago
    With the concerns of the next maintiner going rogue, maybe the ambiguity in TBD is called for.
- pram 5y ago
  Benevolent Regent Lord
- johnny_reilly 5y ago
  when I started work on ts-loader I went with "caretaker" https://blog.johnnyreilly.com/2016/11/01/but-you-cant-die-i-love-you-ts-loader/ https://blog.johnnyreilly.com/2016/11/01/but-you-cant-die-i-...
- PebblesRox 5y ago
  BDFN: benevolent dictator for now
- notriddle 5y ago
  Benevolent Dictator Pro Tempore
robertlagrant 5y ago
Davidism took on Flask/Pallets really well, I think.
watwut 5y ago
> But, is it just me or has it become rarer for open source project maintainers to feel free to let projects go? I don't mean to let them die, I mean, to find like-minded individuals to which you can defer some or all of the work? Burnouts like this happen, because it is not actually possible to keep working on side projects for 30 hours a week on top of actual 40 hours a week work. Whoever would take it would face the exact same issue.
CJefferson 5y ago
I think with the modern internet, and GitHub, it's much harder. It used to be reasonable to make a release every year or so, and basically not be in communication other than that. You could also assume all your dependencies would release updates every year. Now people expect replies to their GitHub issues within a few days, if you have CI you were probably using Travis and had to update everything, etc.
- CR007 5y ago
  I believe that GitHub problem is that people not into software development are pushing those actually developing at a very low developer/user ratio, it always feels like a never ending task and people won't ever stop asking features as they got used to see Corp projects next to project garages in the same service? To release way less often has been one of the best changes I've made and also dual licensing. If people will get me a hard time then pay for that part of the development.
matheusmoreira 5y ago
> there is nothing wrong with putting out a call for someone to take over maintainership Why is this necessary? If someone wants to start maintaining a project, all they need to do is fork it. For example, ZBar is now being maintained by a Linux kernel developer. His fork started getting updates and contributions and is now objectively better than the original project. Linux distributions have already accepted it as the master branch.
kstenerud 5y ago
It's actually very hard to find help on an open source project. People are fine with submitting the odd PR here and there or reporting issues, but actually RUNNING a project, in whole or in part, is a serious commitment that few people will find the energy to stick with.
blacktriangle 5y ago
This is partially why over the last few years I've been moving away from using smaller packages in favor of rolling my own. Big things like frameworks are generally safe bets, they generally are able to build a community around them pretty easily. But smaller libraries are often not worth the long-term risk.
saalweachter 5y ago
Is this just a function of how long it takes to recreate ~80% of the functionality? It doesn't matter if it takes half a decade to implement the last 20% of the feature set and iron out all of the bugs and corner cases, if you can bang out a prototype in a long weekend, someone is going to do that over and over. Meanwhile, if it takes nearly a year just to get something half-working, the existing open source codebase has to be pretty bad for you to not at least fork it.
rodgerd 5y ago
> But, is it just me or has it become rarer for open source project maintainers to feel free to let projects go? Social media - and GitHub is definitely a social media tool - gives people an easy way to shout at you whenever they're unhappy, and gives them plenty of tools to get in your face while making it very hard for you to cut them out.

robin_reala 5y ago

I think part of the worry of handing projects over stems from a couple of fairly high-profile events when projects were handed over to theoretically trust-worthy people who went rogue and used them as a platform for malware or spear phishing. Suddenly, even just relinquishing control can be a bad thing for the community.

antran22 5y ago
The thing is, if the new project maintainers go against the community, but the community really need to use it, the community will just fork out a new path and move on. If the project is really open source.
- ChrisMarshallNY 5y ago
  I don’t think that really happens, anymore. Twenty years ago, they would have done that, but these days, someone would just write a replacement from scratch (quite possibly, proprietary), or everyone would abandon it, along with their own projects that depend on it. Most open-source (and closed-source) APIs and SDKs are “Swiss Army knife” projects, with many functions that serve many purposes. Most API consumers use only a subset of the interface, so “rolling their own” is not that intimidating. I think with all the security problems that we’re seeing, these days, we may be headed for some agency/consortium that validates dependencies (with all the myriad problems, therein). We may be seeing more “semi-proprietary” stuff, soon. Not necessarily a bad thing, as I think that anyone that makes money on software should probably pay for it.
  - antran22 5y ago
    I think we are straying from the point of FOSS once we talk about money. If I start a new open source project, it will be my gift to the world, and I expect to gain nothing from it financially. If Google make a billion bucks from my project then I'm sure some other dudes running a startup is using it too, and if my project helps them then I'm happy. If my help is not appreciated, lotsa luck gentlemen ;) As I have made my point before, if all I want is money I would spend my time working a paying job. But money is not everything isn't it?
    - ChrisMarshallNY 5y ago
      Preaching to the choir, here. Take a gander at my work. But making things that other people depend on is an obligation; not just a vocation. I liken writing an SDK/API/library to having children. Once they are there, they aren't really my "property" anymore, and I am under an obligation to maintain and support them, so I need to keep that in mind, when I publish them. I need to play the long game. I've written a system that is used by thousands, around the world, and is the backbone infrastructure for a particular demographic. It is not hyperbole to say that lives depend on it. I worked on it for ten years, before transferring it. The best thing that I ever did for that system was toss the keys to a new team, and walk away. Nowadays, I'm just the dorky old man that chips in his two cents' worth, from time to time. I'm not particularly interested in getting into religious battles, which is fairly common in the [F]OSS community. I mostly code for the love of the craft. Delivering and supporting open-source projects helps me to have a purpose, but I also take my obligations quite seriously. One of those obligations is to go to great lengths to deliver very high-quality software. I'm quite aware that it is not commercially feasible to write software that meets my personal Quality bar, so I give it away for free,
mavhc 5y ago
What's really required is to build a community large enough that the 0.1% of people who can run it are big enough to have a group in charge, set up a foundation etc etc. It's just like going from a monarchy to a democracy, hard, takes ages, fails a lot. That won't work for most small projects though, so orgs like https://sfconservancy.org/ https://sfconservancy.org/ exist. Not sure what other options like SFC exist, and the differences between them though. At a minimum you'd want them to be in charge, and fire the current lead developer if they go rogue.

yarcob 5y ago

I maintain two slightly popular open source apps, and my experience is that there are a lot of people interested in using your product, but very few people interested in contributing to it. I've had a few people offer help over the course of the years, but unfortunately they don't always have all the skills needed, so they can only help with a part of the project. When they do have the necessary skills, they don't have the time. As I don't have the time to keep working on both projects for free, I'll probably abandon the lesser used one. I'd love to find a successor for the second project, but to be honest I don't have any idea how to go about finding that person. (I don't want to post specifics of the projects because I'm trying not to link this account with my real world identity)

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
cheph 5y ago
> I've had a few people offer help over the course of the years, but unfortunately they don't always have all the skills needed, so they can only help with a part of the project. So whats wrong with allowing them to help with those parts?
- bleepleblopple 5y ago
  Allowing people to help also takes time...there's a non-trivial management effort involved...one that's too frequently forgotten about in these discussions.
  - jckahn 5y ago
    This is very true. Even when collaborating with very skilled engineers, it takes a lot of time and energy to respond to ideas, questions, and review PRs. It’s like a regular programming job to a certain degree, but you’re typically not paid for doing it.
    - cheph 5y ago

cheph 5y ago

> But, is it just me or has it become rarer for open source project maintainers to feel free to let projects go? I think it has always been rare. I generally avoid projects which are under a person's own github account because to me it is a massive red flag that they will kill the project by failing to maintain it and failing to hand it over at some point in time. When you build a project the most important part is to eliminate dependency on yourself. If you are approving all commits, or doing most changes, you need to fix it, because it is a problem. I don't really understand pedronauck's response. If he does not have time, he should tell people he does not have time and they should make PRs, is that not the point of open source projects? There is nothing wrong with demanding that people help themselves, people are not entitled to your time, and unless you are not processing PRs then you are not the problem.

hnlmorg 5y ago
In an ideal world you're right. But most people don't create projects expecting -- or even wanting -- huge success. 1. Sometimes people create a project for themselves but use Github as a convenient place to store the code. I've done that before and found people filing issues against those projects. 2. Sometimes people create a project to scratch a personal itch and put it online in case it helps anyone else. Not in the sense of hoping people will use it but rather than in the "I bought 10 bottles of wine and only drank 9. Help yourselves to the last bottle" sense. Maybe there should be (maybe there already is) a software license that should better explain the "wrote this for myself. You're free to use it but don't expect support". 3. Some people probably do hope that their project has some, maybe even just small, degree of success but they host in their own user profile because their Github profile is their CV and they're starting new projects in the hope of landing better jobs. This 3rd group are a particular problem for open source. Not in the sense that they're doing anything wrong -- they're clearly not. But in the sense that you end up with a lot of NIH since the primary reason for a project existing is to boost the CV. So when the primary maintainer moves on, any future contributors will prefer to build their own solution rather for their own CV rather than taking over maintenance of the existing project. --- It should also be noted that not all projects are large enough to warrant their own Github org. Take BurntSushi's stuff. I'd wager the percentage of HN developers who use BurntSushi's code is in the double figures. But there'd be no sense in every one of his projects being it's own org.

fxtentacle 5y ago

In my opinion, there's just a shortage of experienced engineers. Everyone these days is chasing the latest Javascript framework hype and practicing the next big modern language, e.g. Rust or Go. But most important infrastructure open source is written in C++ and to maintain a cross-platform library linked into hundreds of apps, you need years of practical working experience to accurately estimate the side effects down the line from a seemingly innocent patch. There's few people who have that experience. Plus as the greybeards retire, more and more companies need to hire this kind of developer to keep their own stuff running. So the people who could do open source usually have a waiting list for future freelancing clients.

pjmlp 5y ago
As greybeard, I see the golden age of FOSS like disco/hippie days, eventually the majority that was against the man ended up working at wall street like jobs during the 80's and early 90s. Same will happen when everyone that actually made BSD and GNU happen is no longer around, it will be business as usual.

GuB-42 5y ago

Often a project, a club, or even a company only hold because of one passionate individual. Once he is gone, it is the end. It is very hard to find someone with the same level of motivation. Projects stop being maintained, clubs cease activities, and companies get taken over for short term profit. It is particularly apparent in schools. Students start something, then they graduate and do something else. Most of the times, no one takes over, at least not in a sustainable way. It is not always the case, but it is the most common outcome. Simply, I think there are simply more people who want to start something than there are people who want to lead somebody else's project.

icoder 5y ago
To maintain something you will need a match between what type of person is needed and what type of person is available. To start something, any type (well, very simply put) of person will do, often the need emerges from what they initiate. This may also explain the imbalance you see. Having said that, I also think that just as often it _seems_ no one is available, until someone steps down and things do turn out allright. Of course this idea that a project will stop if the passionate individual stops is based on exactly the observation you describe! So that fuels the idea but you'll never know until you stop.
marcosdumay 5y ago
I don't know how the idea that people are replaceable got so popular. Yeah, I know why some people tried to make it so, but it's so blatantly false that I don't understand how those people were successful. Anyway, nobody ever simply gets replaced. When you change the people, things change. Some times it's a disaster, other times it's an improvement, but the result is never exactly like the beginning.
chrchang523 5y ago
There is an interesting "converse" to this observation for open-source projects, though. Namely: if a nontrivial abandoned project is still widely used, it probably represents a major career opportunity for anyone willing to take over maintenance. This isn't purely hypothetical: it's the foundation of my own career.

wccrawford 5y ago

"I don't mean to let them die, I mean, to find like-minded individuals to which you can defer some or all of the work?" I've seen lots of these calls for help fail. And someone else points out: It's open source. Literally anyone can continue the work at any time. There's no need for the original creator to find someone else to continue it. Anyone can just do it.

sokoloff 5y ago
There’s a community aspect to consider though. You and I could both decide to continue some open-source project. The community will (reasonably and maybe even “rightly”) look to the original maintainer for guidance on which 0, 1, or 2 forks they suggest to continue.
- icoder 5y ago
  Sure, one thing (it being OK to drop an already open source project) doesn't exclude the other (suggesting a fork if there happen to be any).
- gmueckl 5y ago
  It's even worse with other patterns, e.g. when the original project is suffering from some bit rot, the maintainer is unresponsive for months, independent forks spring up to fix that rot and suddenly you get a bout of activity in the original project and then another lengthy period of silence.
  - josephg 5y ago
    Yep. I think its important for project maintainers to be clear about the maintenance status of a project. You don't have to maintain a project forever, but if its not maintained its good to be clear about that. Eg: "This project works but will not be maintained. Github issues & PRs will be ignored. If you want changes, fork the project. If your fork is being actively maintained, let me know and I'll link to your fork from this readme."
  - beckingz 5y ago

mschuster91 5y ago

> But, is it just me or has it become rarer for open source project maintainers to feel free to let projects go? I don't mean to let them die, I mean, to find like-minded individuals to which you can defer some or all of the work? There are few projects that actually get used for longer than a couple years at most, the churn (especially in JS projects) is massive. You'll always find people to work on Big Old Stuff that's used everywhere - think Linux kernel, Qt/KDE, Gnome, Firefox, Thunderbird, libc, gcc, LLVM, jQuery, ReactJS - but the small stuff that gets disrupted ehhh replaced by some shinier newer toy? That will eventually diminish and die off, when the original author either has all their needs met, burns out or no longer needs the project. Additionally, all of the above projects have massive financial firepower and/or other institutional backing behind them that contributes either with direct man hours or financial grants.

genezeta 5y ago

I'm not sure if it's "become" rare or rarer. But in a way Github, npm, or maybe it was just ourselves in general... but we seem to have promoted the idea of "build it and they will come" to an unrealistic level. While interested people will come, I think it is rare that a distant and complete stranger will suddenly appear and not only share your same interests but also with the same level of compromise. And given that some projects now seem to suffer sudden popularity growths as flavour of the month -or week-, it would also be rare that such a person or persons would appear before that happens and the pressure suddenly increases.

c-cube 5y ago

A temporary BDFL... Would that be called a TBD (temporary benevolent dictator)? :)

detaro 5y ago
Shouldn't it be BTD? Somehow that word order feels better.
- account42 5y ago
  With the concerns of the next maintiner going rogue, maybe the ambiguity in TBD is called for.
pram 5y ago
Benevolent Regent Lord
johnny_reilly 5y ago
when I started work on ts-loader I went with "caretaker" https://blog.johnnyreilly.com/2016/11/01/but-you-cant-die-i-love-you-ts-loader/ https://blog.johnnyreilly.com/2016/11/01/but-you-cant-die-i-...
PebblesRox 5y ago
BDFN: benevolent dictator for now
notriddle 5y ago
Benevolent Dictator Pro Tempore

robertlagrant 5y ago

Davidism took on Flask/Pallets really well, I think.

watwut 5y ago

> But, is it just me or has it become rarer for open source project maintainers to feel free to let projects go? I don't mean to let them die, I mean, to find like-minded individuals to which you can defer some or all of the work? Burnouts like this happen, because it is not actually possible to keep working on side projects for 30 hours a week on top of actual 40 hours a week work. Whoever would take it would face the exact same issue.

CJefferson 5y ago

I think with the modern internet, and GitHub, it's much harder. It used to be reasonable to make a release every year or so, and basically not be in communication other than that. You could also assume all your dependencies would release updates every year. Now people expect replies to their GitHub issues within a few days, if you have CI you were probably using Travis and had to update everything, etc.

CR007 5y ago
I believe that GitHub problem is that people not into software development are pushing those actually developing at a very low developer/user ratio, it always feels like a never ending task and people won't ever stop asking features as they got used to see Corp projects next to project garages in the same service? To release way less often has been one of the best changes I've made and also dual licensing. If people will get me a hard time then pay for that part of the development.

matheusmoreira 5y ago

> there is nothing wrong with putting out a call for someone to take over maintainership Why is this necessary? If someone wants to start maintaining a project, all they need to do is fork it. For example, ZBar is now being maintained by a Linux kernel developer. His fork started getting updates and contributions and is now objectively better than the original project. Linux distributions have already accepted it as the master branch.

kstenerud 5y ago

It's actually very hard to find help on an open source project. People are fine with submitting the odd PR here and there or reporting issues, but actually RUNNING a project, in whole or in part, is a serious commitment that few people will find the energy to stick with.

blacktriangle 5y ago

This is partially why over the last few years I've been moving away from using smaller packages in favor of rolling my own. Big things like frameworks are generally safe bets, they generally are able to build a community around them pretty easily. But smaller libraries are often not worth the long-term risk.

saalweachter 5y ago

Is this just a function of how long it takes to recreate ~80% of the functionality? It doesn't matter if it takes half a decade to implement the last 20% of the feature set and iron out all of the bugs and corner cases, if you can bang out a prototype in a long weekend, someone is going to do that over and over. Meanwhile, if it takes nearly a year just to get something half-working, the existing open source codebase has to be pretty bad for you to not at least fork it.

rodgerd 5y ago

> But, is it just me or has it become rarer for open source project maintainers to feel free to let projects go? Social media - and GitHub is definitely a social media tool - gives people an easy way to shout at you whenever they're unhappy, and gives them plenty of tools to get in your face while making it very hard for you to cut them out.