[Themaintainers] Sunsetting/archiving projects

[Camille E. Acey]

Thanks. Will do!

On January 17, 2019 2:39:14 PM EST, James Howison <jhowison at ischool.utexas.edu> wrote:
>There was a great presentation on shutting down software infrastructure
>services at the Research Software engineers Conference in the UK:
>https://rse.ac.uk/conf2018/programme/
>
>"Be Prepared to Be Unpopular: Tips on Shutting Services Down"
>Catherine Jones:  https://www.scd.stfc.ac.uk/Pages/Catherine-Jones.aspx
>
>Unfortunately slides not online, but she had some good ones, perhaps
>drop
>her a note?
>
>Cheers,
>James Howison
>
>On Thu, Jan 17, 2019 at 1:24 PM jan <dittrich.c.jan at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> 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.
>> >
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>> >
>>
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>
>
>-- 
>James Howison
>
>Associate Professor and Director of Doctoral Studies
>School of Information
>University of Texas at Austin
>http://james.howison.name

-- 
Sent from my Android device with K-9 Mail. Please excuse my brevity.
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