Slashdot Mirror
Ask Slashdot: Aging and Orphan Open Source Projects?
osage writes: Several colleagues and I have worked on an open source project for over 20 years under a corporate aegis. Though nothing like Apache, we have a sizable user community and the software is considered one of the de facto standards for what it does. The problem is that we have never been able to attract new, younger programmers, and members of the original set have been forced to find jobs elsewhere or are close to retirement. The corporation has no interest in supporting the software. Thus, in the near future, the project will lose its web site host and be devoid of its developers and maintainers. Our initial attempts to find someone to adopt the software haven't worked. We are looking for suggestions as to what course to pursue. We can't be the only open source project in this position.
"Fork" the thing on SourceForge or similar service. SYNC the repos and web pages there over the time while trying to gather collaboration.
Perhaps you can manage to get there what your company doesn't. At very least, this will guarantee the project's surviving when your company shuts the support down.
At very worst, you'll have a way to save the project's source code and documentation to posteriority when the company support ends.
In the mean time, you can negotiate a hand over to Apache, GNU or any other Open/Free Software Foundation.
Lisias@Earth.SolarSystem.OrionArm.MilkyWay.Local.Virgo.Universe.org
Depending on the type of software, you could try getting it into Apache, OW2, or others. Also fork it to github.
Could you be a little more specific about the kind of software this is about?
That might reveal why people shy away from the project.
Anyway, in general, keep in mind that maintaining software is boring and does not earn one brownie points.
Motivating people to write the software from scratch might work better.
In that case, make sure your functional specs are up to date.
If Pandora's box is destined to be opened, *I* want to be the one to open it.
On GitHub, you don't even need developers. The cloud does everything, through the magical miracles of unicorn sweat and pixie dandruff.
If you won't support it elsewhere, ask the community if anyone of them want to host/support it. It just requires an i.e. github account to host the code, and the key pieces of information of forums/wiki pages/etc could be move there by the community if there is enough interest.
In the end, if the project wasnt developed exclusively by your company developers, it belongs to the community too.
Since when have open source projects been about cloak and dagger? Name it, explain it, and Slash users can tell you what the best option is. As a general rule, you can stick it on Source Forge under a known license and promote it on Slashdot and it sinks or swims, but even if it stagnates, OLD CODE STILL RUNS and lives on past its developers.
The nature of open source is that you offer it to *everyone* under a known license, so if your user bases really uses it, they can have the code and maintain it themselves.
Yours wouldn't be the first software that has become abandonware. Users may appreciate the stability of an unchanging release. If it's distributed under a Libre license, then it can be forked and redistributed, but chances are that kids would rather make their own mistakes than work on your program.
Have a nice time.
You have a couple issues that you mention - but without knowing the software this advice is all I got for you...
"The mind is a terrible thing to, um, uh, oh bollocks." -- Me
Many projects started with simple code and increased the complexity overs the years up to the point that less and less peoples are willing to learn it. A key to attract new developers is to split the project in smaller parts and let others take the maintenance of those smaller parts. Don't hesitate to use standard libraries whenever possible and don't hesitate to rewrite code to make it easier to read. Up to date documentation and tested tutorial on how to start coding for example an extension might be good advantage.
Close relations with distributions can be a source of new developers instead of a layer that isolate the project from the users. It's an advantage to directly maintain the project in a few leading distribution.
Probably a very important factor for attracting new contributors is how there idea are welcomed at there first post and how there are credited for there effort.
I would suggest you give the project a name first, given from your post it doesn't seem to have one. Then publish on well known site that this project is searching for devs.
I gave up with the idea of an useful sig...
This was asked back on Slashdot 14 years ago in 2000. As you can see, most of the websites mentioned that archived "ummaintained" software have since evaporated and are unmaintained themselves!
Then it was talked about briefly on stackoverflow in 2009.
Submitter, what I suggest you do is include a text file that describes the history of the project (If it was me - I think it would be nice to thank those by name who made significant contributions), known issues, ideas for direction of the project (if any), and then post it to Github and Sourceforge as an 'ummaintained' software. With as permissive as a license as you can give it, which will encourage it's use down the road. Also, I would post links, notices, and intentions to any associated forums. And give the community as much time to as possible before closing the website down. Maybe someone or some company will have the where with all to continue the project. If it is reasonable to do so and they seem to be reputable and serious, you might let them. Otherwise, when finished, make sure that archive.org has browsed the website for their archives. Also, post a copy the final software there. If it has a domain name, if you can, I'd give it a ten year renewal date and give it a notice of closure and a link to the project on Github.
But the larger issue for me, is that you, your colleagues, and friends spent time and effort on this project. That should be recognized. At least by acknowledging that support is ceasing for this project, it can hopefully move on to other hands in the future. It does happen.
I wish more more programmers were as thoughtful as you. And I wish there were better ways (i.e. more permanent and standardized) of dealing with orphanware.
Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
Said this already a while back on a simular problem:
It's called marketing.
In short:
If your project is (re)presented properly, you'll have people falling over each other to claim gouvernance over it.
I'd put it into a foundation - after refurbishing it's outward representation!
Example: Typo3's architecture looks like it's designed by monkees on crack, it's config language TypoScript is so bizar - in concept and in implementaion - I can't even describe it and there are a countless other strange things about this software. Yet it has a professional website, ressonable documentation and a solid brand, brandbook included(!). I doubt the Typo3 Foundation has problems finding heralds for it's project. There even are Oreilly's on it.
Hope I could help. And good luck finding a heir for your project.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
I'd rather write a replacement product then help old software limp along. Also old code tends to be ..........
Mature, debugged, and well documented?
The GP should be modded +5, Painful Truth.
I don't think I've EVER seen old code that's well documented. Not even stuff from my own larval "Document all the things!" phase... I think subversion feeds on comments.
Well, on comments and release engineers' tears, when it comes time to merge...
Take down the Web site. Eliminate all official downloads.
First, people shouldn't be encouraged to use unmaintained software.
Second, if somebody really depends on it, they're put on notice that they now have to step up and support it.
or are close to retirement.
Wouldn't a retired person have a lot of time on their hands to contribute to the project? Or it's customary in your country for all people at retirement age to perform ritual suicide?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
just anounce you'll implement Systemd support, they'll fork you in a minute
Why are other peoples sig's always more witty ???
I have the same issues with OS/2 source code. Not been able to attract new and younger programmers and many of the source code is scattered on the web with the risk of being lost.
I'm doing the following:
1) I had organized all source code I was able to find on GitHub:
- Created a Organization on github - https://github.com/os2world
- Organized the repos in "named-categories"
2) Created a Wiki to organize the catalog.
3) I will upload a copy of all repositories and a wiki dump to the Internet Archive. http://www.archive.org/
This are my steps to try that the source code do not get lost.