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.

Comments

Options...

[Lisias]

"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.

Re:Options...

[Anonymous Coward]

"Fork" the thing on SourceForge or similar service.

Also a Dice holding. Bitbucket or github are in better shape these days.

More specific

[StripedCow]

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.

Re:More specific

[butalearner]

A bit of Google-fu reveals that osage, the name of the submitter, is also the name a layout/rendering tool associated with GraphViz. It's likely old enough to fit the "over 20 years" comment and was the de facto standard until a bunch of javascript graph visualization libraries popped up and made it easier to create prettier, interactive graphs. The latter explains why younger developers might shy away from it: it's written in C instead of javascript. And it was started by AT&T Labs Research to fulfill the corporate aegis bit. And there is a banner on the Graphviz homepage trying to attract developers.

So unless this is all coincidence, we may have a winner, which would be sad since I use it on occasion.

commit to GitHub

[Anonymous Coward]

On GitHub, you don't even need developers. The cloud does everything, through the magical miracles of unicorn sweat and pixie dandruff.

Re:Why the cloak and dagger?

[PhilHibbs]

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.

A discussion for the ages - literally

[eclectro]

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.