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Ettiquette For Restarting Abandoned Open Source Projects?
nicsterrr asks: "What does one do when a promising open source project stops dead with no word from the developer(s)? I have been considering contributing to a certain sorceforge hosted project over the past few months, but unfortunately all development seems to have stopped and the main developer has vanished (from the internet at least). I understand that the GPL states that GPL source code can be used in derived work if the licence is unchanged, but I am hesitant just to 'hijack' the work done by (it seems) just one person, without first having an understanding of what his thoughts are first. In addition, there are almost no supporting comments in the code, and no separate developer documentation. What would you do in this situation if you were interested in furthering the undocumented, unfinished, and currently abandoned work (which at first glance seems to have potential) of someone else, and your attempts to
contact them have been in vain?"
What you're essentially doing is creating a development fork, with the original "tine" not being developed.
I suppose you should take some time and try and contact the original developers, and see if you can get an official go-ahead. But if you can't, go right ahead.
In the worst case, if the original maintainers come back and cause such a stink about your taking over the project, they can take what you produced and merge or develop their own fork.
Chances are the original author is no longer interested in the code, and may not want to hear about it anymore. Either that, or they've lost their Internet connectivity, moved on with their lives, or maybe even died. In all these case, I don't think they'll give a rat's ass if you take over their code and clean it up. And if they do, well, you can ask them to help you maintain your forked version :-) Leaving a project abandoned because somebody might not want you to work on it is wasteful, and goes against the whole Open-Source philosophy.
is like leaving a question without answer.
Buy a Nintendo DS Lite
It wouldn't be GPL'd. That's what the license is there for. Use it.
Didnt Eric Raymond write an essay about that at one time.
I seem to recall that he formulated a set of guidelines from
when he took over the fetchmail project, but I cant seem to
find it on line.
Well i have not been in the same situation per say, however I am involved in some web app development that has seemingly been un edited in quite some time. So I have picked up wher ethe original people have left off. They did ask for a useage fee, but since I helped debug and troubleshoot the application I feel no need to further help line their pockets since they left me high and dry. I still use the application almost everyday in my work as a web developer but I dont feel any need to share with the originators and they dont bother asking me to. I think that if you have stumble across an abandond peice of software that has potential RUN WITH IT, hell thats what Gates essintially did and look at where he is now. Of course I hope your not so close minded as Bill and wont ruin a perectly good idea in the process. Before I start to ramble (very tired) I wish you the best of luck in your experience.
We admit all this to insure disbelief
Just to clear yourself of any liability, write the following letter to the former developer, and post a copy publically on the project page.
Dear [open source guy who abandoned a project]:
I've looked with great interest at [project]. The sourceforge page shows that the project activity is nearly zero, and the last software release was done almost three years ago.
It seems like such a waste to have the project stagnate, so I wanted to take this opportunity to pass along a few comments. Namely, I want to inform you that I will be resuming development of this fantastic application. You've done a fine job, and it will be a great honor to continue in your footsteps. I also have a few other things, I feel you should know.
I don't know how to put this delicately, but: YOU LAZY FUCK, YOUR SHIT IS MY SHIT NOW. It's TOO FUCKING BAD you can't finish a single fucking thing that you started, you ass jockey sloth. NEXT TIME, WHY DON'T YOU MAN THE FUCK UP. Take a little responsiblity for ONCE IN YOUR LIFE YOU WORTHLESS SACK OF PUBES.
LAZY FUCKS like you probably don't even finish taking a shit. WHAT THE FUCK IS YOUR FUCKING PROBLEM? YOU DISAPPEAR LIKE SOME FUCKING FBI SUPA DOUBLE TOP SECRET AGENT. You are a failed open source developer. WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU RUNNING FROM? The honest answer, as a failed open source developer, is your fucking shame!
Please feel free to send me any comments or advice. I look forward to hearing from you.
Warm regards,
PMF
If the code is promising and the developer is gone, maybe it'd be easier to Fork the project into "MyProject2 - MyProject reborn" than to try to "hijack" the project off sourceforge. I'd definitely would fork off into my own development. I know what you mean by you wnat the thoughts of the main developer who started it. He could give you insight into what you should do from where he left off, or he might become excited about the project and ides you would have. Until he talks to you Fork it.
WTPOUAWYHTTOTWPA
What's the point of using acronyms when you have to type out the whole phrase anyways?
Was it really abandoned or did the guy have something happen to him in meatworld? I mean it could be anything, got locked up, got sick, moved to ubangiland, anything. With that said, here's one solution, you can fork it immediately,get to work on it,and if/when the original guy shows back up,contact him and either agree to rejoin efforts-or not.
It is within your right under tha authors' chosen license that you may modify the source and make it publically available (which it must be :)).
:)
I personally think it's great you're concerned with etiquette, but the author is uncontactable. If he contacts you in the future with concerns about your work, it appears you already have the manners to listen to him, at any time.
Good luck.
I have been in almost exactly the same position you find yourself. Mike Trojnara, who was (and again is) the developer of Stunnel fell off the face of the Internet for a while back in 2000, and there were several problems that I discovered in the code during his absense. The machine running it was no longer under his control, and eventually dissapeared alltogether, so I took all my archives and started creating new versions. To make it obvious I'd taken over, aside from being blatant about it on the mailing list (which was still working) I labeled my versions differently - 3.8p1 instead of 3.9, for example. Eventually Mike found his way back onto the net, and I promptly and happily handed the developer's sword back to him. His next version was build directly from my latest version (though he later removed the 'goto' I put in there just because I could.)
I had always planned on giving it back to him if he wanted it (I wasn't comfortable developing crypto code here in the US at the time - my rights were still very vaguely defined at the time) so in my experience it went off without a hitch, and there was no fork, just a smooth transition from one to the other.
If you want to continue maintaining it, and are releasing it under the GPL (which I assume you must), there's no reason the original author can't fork off yours or maintain his older branch separately.
I'd say make every effort to reach the original author, and if you don't get anywhere, start maintaining it. You have every legal right, and even the moral right when Open Source code stagnates.
Alot of open source projects have died of late. It would be nice if new developers would pick up where the old ones left off. There are also alot of projects out there that are in need of help. For example ReactOS, an open source, modular windows NT clone has a bright future, it just needs more developers. It is currently farther along then any other 'windows clone' project around. I'm not affiliated with the above said project. There are also alot of closed source projects that are dead, but those are another story ---- MetaWorx Software (Under Reconstruction)
I once checked with the Free Software Foundation on whether they knew anything about the OS/2 port of EMACS (last check had it at 19.3.x or something really old). As they were unable to contact anybody on that, I was told that I was welcome to do what I would with it, be it build the original code or just let it fester.
That's the really cool thing about GNU - a side effect is that if somebody stops the show for some reason and abandons the project (in this case...well, OS/2, you do the math), you are welcome to pick up whatever pieces were left and run with the torch. Sourceforge even seems to allow for that, with the resources already there.
This sig no verb.
That's an idea. A new open source project for meeting girls.
Have you checked it's not in http://www.unmaintained-free-software.org/
And the moral of this story Kids is don't post on Slashdot from an AOL account.
Sorry about the writing. Robot fingers, you know? Cliff Steele in DOOM PATROL #23
wondering if he's talking about one of my abandoned software packages?
I don't understand. Why was this moderated "-1, Troll?" I obviously meant for it to be moderated "-1, Flamebait." Didn't you read the part where I personally insulted RMS, and made fun of religious freaks at the same time?
Come on, moderators. Do your jobs right for a change.
Gotta love the GOTO
I used to put a gratuitous GOTO in all my programming assignments.
Funny thing is it never got mentioned by any of the lecturers even though it was stuck in an obvious place.
It made me wonder how much I could actually get away with spaghetti-wise.
It's flamebait because you are a troll. They are just marking the cause not the symptom.
Who is RMS?
...your OWN email address does not bounce.
I have been approached by four or five people so far to resume work on an open source project that has been defunct, but I have been unable to respond to, like, three of them because their emails bounced! And one of these guys was from IBM...you'd figure they'd at least have email working.
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
IANAL, but it sound like you've made a good faith effort to contact the old developer. I would make an effort to find out if they claim any ownership over the NAME of the program before taking it.
/. at this moment. Why not just tell everyone what program you have your eye on? Perhaps someone knows the author. Or you may get some volunteers to help you comb the code.
Remember: Linux is GPL, and you can do what you want with it, but Linus owns the name. If the boys in Redmond try to put out something called Linux they will get a knock on the door from attorneys representing Mr. Torvolds. Same goes for you. Find out if the name is trademarked (unlikely, but hey, CYA).
Also, you have large an audience here at
I have had this happen with code I wrote. Basically I have stopped developing the code. Hey it works it does what I want it to do and I am happy with it and so are others. However there are a few that want more out of it so they send me an email and ask me if they can modify it or do whatever to it. I say yes, go ahead, just call it something different please. It works. To me it is basiclly 'open source coding courtesy'. Just tell the project owner that you want to make changes to the code or that you have made changes. The most you can do is send them an email and hope they reply. Often they will say have at it.
Only 'flamers' flame!
As an "abandoner," I don't care if you fork a dead project (or a live one) as long as you make a reasonable effort to let me know and use a sufficiently distinct name to avoid confusion.
N.B., you don't HAVE to contact me, but it's a nice courtesy because I might be able to hook you up with others doing similar work, or I might have something in the pipeline very similar to what you want to do but which I don't yet consider publishable.
It sounds like you did everything you could, so fork the project and give it a new name and don't worry about it. For a year or so, you'll want to mention the fork from the old project, but just in case it revives or there are other forks in progress - it makes it much easier to coordinate efforts in the future.
BTW, reasons I've dropped off the net include travel, busy with work, busy with life, busy with skills development, etc. I've occasionally dropped it because I realized that there was a much cleaner way of solving the problem, but sometimes the approach is so different that I create a new project instead of having an abrupt transition in the old one. Hell, I've even abandoned a project because it depended on another group for some critical libraries, but their attitude made it too time consuming to use their library but impossible to work around them. (Yeah, I'm talking to you Debian apt developers. Apt is great, but it's not a full CMS system.)
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. -- H L Mencken
Was there ever an attempt to post the stated desire within the discussion forum of the project? There is an obvious chance to contact the author from Slashdot.org; yet, the specific project is not mentioned in the inquiry on the Slashdot.org forum.