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.
Because it can cause embarrassment to the company to admit that their software is in peril. Maybe this guy doesn't have the authority to make announcements to the public on behalf of his employer.
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.
Not much of an "open" source project if you can't even name it, is it?
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
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?
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...
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?
The software came out of the Research organization which at the time had a wide mandate. As there was no interest within the company of capitalizing on it, we were able to get it released as open source (currently, with the Eclipse license). As the software provided a platform for our research, work on it was encouraged. Of late, the company has greatly curtailed research, firing many and convincing many others to leave voluntarily, and restricting work to a few areas. We have moved the code base to GitHub but have kept the web site on its current machine until we decide what to do. As with most companies, managers can be touchy about employees airing concerns publicly.