[Themaintainers] Death of open projects and its rituals?

[Jan Dittrich]

Hello Maintainers,

Thank you for all the interesting responses! I will reply briefly, 
inline, to not send many short messages!

Camille wrote:

> This is exactly what I do! Check out my website below!

Thanks a lot, I will! There are many interesting articles, so I will 
need to find some good way to start.

Monica wrote:

> It's quite interesting because there is then an industry of keeping 
> things alive for profit, rather than letting a project die a natural 
> death, if you will. 
This is fascinating! I don't know what I do with it, but it has "The 
Devil and Commodity Fetishism"-vibes to me!

Sumana wrote: [About "archiving", "sunsetting", python 2, badges and 
de-associating with works]:

These are great examples! Some I knew already, but it a also renewed my 
interest in understanding the python 2/3 transition (which was pretty 
tough and long-going, if I remember correctly) and the practices of 
author/work relation on AO3!

If you have more ideas and pointers, I am happy to hear them – this is 
not to close the topic but to say "thank you"!

Jan

Am 06.03.2025 um 15:54 schrieb Camille E. Acey:
> Hi Jan,
>
> This is exactly what I do! Check out my website below!
> Camille
> Camille E. Acey
> The Wind Down <https://wind-down.org> | Stewarding Loss community 
> <https://stewardingloss.com> |Closing Remarks newsletter 
> <https://wind-down.org/newsletter/archive>
> New York, NY (GMT -5)
> /"Today, I choose to close the door to yesterday and open my mind, my 
> heart, and my spirit to the blessings of this moment."/ - Iyanla 
> Vanzant 
> <https://www.wind-down.org/2024/01/03/morning-closure-affirmation-by-iyanla-vanzant/> 
>
>
> Mar 6, 2025 9:45:35 AM Jan Dittrich <dittrich.c.jan at gmail.com>:
>
>     Hello Maintainers,
>
>     I recently started thinking about rituals for and memories of the
>     end ("death") of projects [1]. How to send-off that project or
>     idea of a future?
>
>     This was based on some conversations with a colleague in academia
>     as well as this call for papers [2]
>
>     In particular, I wondered about the end of "open" projects, i.e.
>     ones that say that their essence is "the code" and/or "the data"
>     like open source software or open knowledge projects. I notices
>     that when these projects are often clearly not "alive" anymore
>     (that is, there is no community around the project that keeps it
>     running or that could be asked),  these projects are not really
>     "dead" either, since they are culturally assumed that someone
>     could just come and continue. Thus, there seems to be a great
>     hesitation to actually declare such projects as ended. However,
>     there imagined end is often used to call for action, both inside
>     such communities ("this feature could be the end of...") and
>     outside of them (like the implied danger to Wikipedia in
>     Wikimedia’s donation banners)
>
>     I would be curious if you know
>     -  interesting alternatives to the metaphors of "alive", "dead"
>     and "grief" in this context (or alternatively, ideas on these
>     metaphors and how they apply!) [3]
>     -  texts about the rituals around ends of projects, particularly
>     ones that have such a complicated relationship to a clear end as
>     the mentioned ideas of open (data/software) projects.
>     -  texts about the rhetorical use of imagined ends of (open)
>     projects [4]
>
>     Kind Regards,
>      Jan
>
>
>     [1]: Or, instead of projects one could take a larger perspective
>     and, a bit awkwardly say: "the not-happening of a future that
>     seemed attainable by ones activity" (in contrast to "it would be
>     great if things would just magically be so that...")
>
>     [2] In German:
>     https://www.soziopolis.de/ausschreibungen/call/aufhoeren-beenden-und-schluss-machen-in-organisationen.html
>     ("Stopping, ending and breaking off in organizations")
>
>     [3] I have thought of ossification, glaciation, weathering and
>     decomposition so far
>
>     [4] Might be connected to community appropriate "extreme case
>     formulations" (A. Pomerantz, 1986) and/or my use of the concept in
>     https://www.fordes.de/posts/disappointment_product_community.html
>
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