[Themaintainers] Sunsetting/archiving projects
Andrew Berger
andrewjberger at gmail.com
Fri Jan 18 02:57:56 EST 2019
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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> >
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> --
> Sent from my Android device with K-9 Mail. Please excuse my brevity.
>
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