[Themaintainers] Sunsetting/archiving projects

[Andrew Berger]

Another possible resource is the Endings Project: 
https://projectendings.github.io/about/

Andrew

On 1/17/19 3:22 PM, Camille E. Acey wrote:
> 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
>     <mailto: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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> -- 
> Sent from my Android device with K-9 Mail. Please excuse my brevity.
>
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