[Themaintainers] Sunsetting/archiving projects

[jan]

Hi Calmille,

(It seems you work in tech, but since there will be people reading along 
who are not doing  tech related stuff, I add some footnotes)

As a software-example:

The web browser Firefox sunsetted the "old" way of  customization for 
adding  custom functions [1] and replaced it with a system called 
WebExtensions. This was done for security reasons, since the old system 
was hard to harden against attacks [2] and hard to maintain and relied 
on a bricolage-y mode of adding the functions [3].

This was interesting for several reasons:

- The existing extension system was rather large, thus stopping it meant 
loosing attractiveness for some users; I assume their absolute numbers 
are not large, but they tend to be vocal, tech savvy and multipliers who 
convince their friends etc.
- It is very hard this in open source projects, since people feel 
strongly about "their" software AND because disabling the 
"do-as-you-like-mode" of extensions can be framed as "constraining user 
freedom", an open source culture anti-value.
- They had a long build up to this, I think going back as far as 2009 
with several ideas and prototypes to replace their extension system. At 
some point they settled with their current system [4] and scaffolded a 
transition period. Probably one can write a PhD with the 10 year material.
- They actually did it :)


Jan


[1] Enabling 3rd parties like users to plug in new functionality into 
Firefox.
[2] Attacks like going to a webpage and the computer being infected by a 
virus ("drive-by") or people reading your previously visited webpages etc.
[3] I am no expert on this, but I think it used be based on changing 
existing functionality so any change to existing functions breaks the 
extensions, potentially.
[4] Which is very similar to Chrome’s, googles web browser which 
currently is the major way of web access, much like Microsoft’s Internet 
Explorer was in the late 90s and early 2000s.



On 16.01.19 21:32, Camille E. Acey wrote:
> Dear Maintainers,
> 
> I'm trying to pull together some guidance on sunsetting/archiving 
> projects and thought this group would likely be a fount of information. 
> I look forward to checking out your suggestions!
> 
> Thanks in advance,
> Camille
> Collective for Liberation, Ecology, and Technology - https://colet.space
> -- 
> Sent from my Android device with K-9 Mail. Please excuse my brevity.
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Themaintainers mailing list
> Themaintainers at lists.stevens.edu
> https://lists.stevens.edu/mailman/listinfo/themaintainers
>