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Ask Slashdot: Spreading the Word About At-Risk Open Source Projects?

Posted by timothy on from the do-not-go-gentle-into-that-good-night dept.

An anonymous reader writes "There is a piece of software, released under the Modified BSD license, that risks becoming abandonware and, IMHO, is worth being saved. Where can I post an announcement to find people than can take care of it?" This seems like a problem that a lot of projects run into; is there a clearinghouse for open-source projects at risk?

5 of 115 comments (clear)

  1. Oh I get it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    You're trying to find someone who will work for free to maintain a piece of software with dubious usefulness just because you like it.

    You got 2 options:

    1. Learn to program it and maintain it yourself.
    2. Pay someone to do it for you.

    1. Re:Oh I get it by dkleinsc · · Score: 4, Insightful

      When I come across a project like that, I ask myself the question "Why did this project not make it to critical mass?" Chances are very good it's one of the following:
      1. It really wasn't that useful, just a fairly good idea that turned out to be not worth the effort.
      2. It's handled better or at least well enough by a larger more established project.
      3. It's targeting a problem that's only a problem to a tiny number of people.

      I'm not saying there isn't some project infancy mortality due to failure to publicize, but if it's really that good, either the original developer will want to keep working on it (because it's useful to him), or that developer will be enamored of it enough to show to his / her friend, who finds it useful enough to keep working on it.

      And GP is right that if your problem is that there's only a tiny number of people who need the project, and you are a part of that minority, the right thing to do is either take it on yourself or pay somebody to help you out.

      --
      I am officially gone from /. Long live http://www.soylentnews.com/
  2. what's the name? by Lunix+Nutcase · · Score: 4, Insightful

    So you want to spread the word but won't even give out the name?

    1. Re:what's the name? by Lunix+Nutcase · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Yes there are idiots who would do that. So what? If the guy wants help he's going to have to give out the name. I'd be interested but if the guy won't say the name it'll be a bit hard to help them.

  3. Where OSS goes to die by chrish · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Lots and lots of dead/abandoned Open Source projects at sourceforge.net, codeplex.com, etc.

    I don't think we need a new service for this, just go look for projects that haven't been updated in 3+ years, you'll find lots of them.

    --
    - chrish