Yes. As a researcher, I have a number of such projects, and use a number of such projects (fortunately, it seems, on Github). In some cases, the repositories

Yes. As a researcher, I have a number of such projects, and use a number of such projects (fortunately, it seems, on Github). In some cases, the repositories go for over a year without new commits, issues, or comments, but they do get downloaded, used, and cited, and comments tend to get made privately. In others, they're simply niche research code that can go for some time without being used, but does end up being useful later. In one case, a niche repository of some personal code I put up on a whim, with 3 commits, no comments, and the latest commit being made in 2014, had a graduate student find it and adapt it for their use a few months ago. With package managers that pull directly from online repositories, it's also possible to have a repository of something small and stable that has no activity other than being cloned often. I realize that I probably have the ability to get a free premium Gitlab account as an academic, but one of the reasons I ended up using Github instead was that Github's process for that was very simple and almost instant, whereas Gitlab's was frustrating and had weirdly pushy salespeople involved to the point that I abandoned the process.