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Way to be! I like this attitude because it's like if you're not going to maintain it or try to profit from it then why keep it to yourself? I'm much the same wa

Way to be! I like this attitude because it's like if you're not going to maintain it or try to profit from it then why keep it to yourself? I'm much the same way. I'm sure we all have little projects that have the potential to make us a few bucks but if you're not willing to keep them up and follow through then you might as well share. Either way it's not like you were going to do anything with them. And you never know who might want to take over or what kind of great new enhancements someone else might contribute that make you proud that you started the project to begin with. Even if the code languishes on github or sourceforge at least there's the possibility for someone to pick it up. What's more, you never know who's picking up abandoned projects and using them privately. Just because there's no cmaintainer or community activity that doesn't mean there isn't the odd person here and there who finds an abandoned project and uses the hell out of it. Contributions from the open source community isn't the only measure of a project's success or usefulness. Individuals finding a use for abandoned projects without contributing back is still a great thing in my book. I don't know about everyone else but I do it for the love of the game, not to see my name in the source code of another project that uses my code. As far as I'm concerned, unless I'm planning to make a profit (in which case I wouldn't publish the source), you can fork, close, distribute and charge whatever you want with my code. I like Alex's style on this one a lot.

mceachen 15y ago
Do you know of an example of someone taking someone else's unfinished project and running with it? (And just to be clear, I'm not trolling -- I'm actually asking.)
- ericflo 15y ago
  The Cassandra project was in really bad shape when FB open sourced it, and it languished like that for several months before Jonathan Ellis picked it up and ran with it. Now it's a thriving Apache project, with contributors from many companies, and even commercial support through DataStax.
- tikhonj 15y ago
  Yeah. My favorite example is JS-2 mode[1]. It's a brilliant mode for editing JavaScript released by Steve Yegge. However, it had some shortcomings and (minor) bugs; Yegge did not have time to support it any more. [1]: http://code.google.com/p/js2-mode/ http://code.google.com/p/js2-mode/ Then somebody cloned it on GitHub[2], changed the indentation, fixed some bugs and added some features. In the past, using JS-2 mode was a bit of a compromise--intelligence at the cost of weird behavior. Now there is no compromise at all. [2]: https://github.com/mooz/js2-mode https://github.com/mooz/js2-mode
- FigBug 15y ago
  Miranda IM (nee Miranda ICQ) didn't become usable or popular until after I gave up on it. I think it's been abandoned at least once again. Several complete different sets of people have been working on it.
- albertzeyer 15y ago
  There was a similar discussion a while ago: [Shutting down a project? Open Source it.](http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3712411 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3712411) Do you also count partly finished projects? I listed some projects [here](http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3713240 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3713240). Most of them were extended/improved a lot, e.g. by porting them to other platforms, etc.
- benackles 15y ago
  WordPress was an abandoned open source project called B2, before it was forked and became the juggernaut it is today.
- fuzzix 14y ago
  The work done on the Perl SDL bindings of late has been sterling - it had been stagnating for quite a while, AFAIK.
- wjbr 14y ago
  http://hackety.com/ http://hackety.com/
scoot 15y ago
unless I'm planning to make a profit (in which case I wouldn't publish the source) Quick, someone tell RedHat - they're doing it all wrong! [0] [0]: http://opensource.com/business/12/3/billion-thanks-open-source-community-red-hat http://opensource.com/business/12/3/billion-thanks-open-sour...
- daeken 15y ago
  The GP never said that open sourcing prevents turning a profit or anything of the sort, just that he/she wouldn't release the source if the goal is to profit from it.
- billpatrianakos 15y ago
  I always get this kind of response whenever I say that. I know you can make a profit with open source code but that's just not my thing nor has anything I've worked on lent itself to that kind of model. I suppose I could have left that phrase out as it really doesn't have much to do with what I was saying and can definitely be taken the wrong way.

mceachen 15y ago

Do you know of an example of someone taking someone else's unfinished project and running with it? (And just to be clear, I'm not trolling -- I'm actually asking.)

ericflo 15y ago
The Cassandra project was in really bad shape when FB open sourced it, and it languished like that for several months before Jonathan Ellis picked it up and ran with it. Now it's a thriving Apache project, with contributors from many companies, and even commercial support through DataStax.
tikhonj 15y ago
Yeah. My favorite example is JS-2 mode[1]. It's a brilliant mode for editing JavaScript released by Steve Yegge. However, it had some shortcomings and (minor) bugs; Yegge did not have time to support it any more. [1]: http://code.google.com/p/js2-mode/ http://code.google.com/p/js2-mode/ Then somebody cloned it on GitHub[2], changed the indentation, fixed some bugs and added some features. In the past, using JS-2 mode was a bit of a compromise--intelligence at the cost of weird behavior. Now there is no compromise at all. [2]: https://github.com/mooz/js2-mode https://github.com/mooz/js2-mode
FigBug 15y ago
Miranda IM (nee Miranda ICQ) didn't become usable or popular until after I gave up on it. I think it's been abandoned at least once again. Several complete different sets of people have been working on it.
albertzeyer 15y ago
There was a similar discussion a while ago: [Shutting down a project? Open Source it.](http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3712411 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3712411) Do you also count partly finished projects? I listed some projects [here](http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3713240 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3713240). Most of them were extended/improved a lot, e.g. by porting them to other platforms, etc.
benackles 15y ago
WordPress was an abandoned open source project called B2, before it was forked and became the juggernaut it is today.
fuzzix 14y ago
The work done on the Perl SDL bindings of late has been sterling - it had been stagnating for quite a while, AFAIK.
wjbr 14y ago
http://hackety.com/ http://hackety.com/

scoot 15y ago

unless I'm planning to make a profit (in which case I wouldn't publish the source) Quick, someone tell RedHat - they're doing it all wrong! [0] [0]: http://opensource.com/business/12/3/billion-thanks-open-source-community-red-hat http://opensource.com/business/12/3/billion-thanks-open-sour...

daeken 15y ago
The GP never said that open sourcing prevents turning a profit or anything of the sort, just that he/she wouldn't release the source if the goal is to profit from it.
billpatrianakos 15y ago
I always get this kind of response whenever I say that. I know you can make a profit with open source code but that's just not my thing nor has anything I've worked on lent itself to that kind of model. I suppose I could have left that phrase out as it really doesn't have much to do with what I was saying and can definitely be taken the wrong way.