That's only 6 months. I don't know if I'd call an obvious research project like this "dead" after that time period. I think there's a difference between "dead"

That's only 6 months. I don't know if I'd call an obvious research project like this "dead" after that time period. I think there's a difference between "dead" and "not exceptionally active". And I don't think that not being exceptionally active necessarily means anything for the quality of the software; people continue actively use a lot of software that hasn't seen a single patch in years.