[Themaintainers] Death of open projects and its rituals?

[Boy, J.D. (John)]

Another nice metaphor from the author Robin Sloan: "home-cooked software" 

"my little home-cooked apps each do the one thing they are supposed to do, sparkle-free. These apps are substantially finished the day I 'launch' them, and, unlike modern commercial software, they are allowed to just: be finished."

https://www.robinsloan.com/lab/five-years-of-home-cooked-apps/

John

________________________________________
From: Boy, J.D. (John) <j.d.boy at fsw.leidenuniv.nl>
Sent: Friday, March 7, 2025 11:14
To: Jan Dittrich; themaintainers at lists.stevens.edu
Subject: Re: [Themaintainers] Death of open projects and its rituals?

Hi Jan,

> 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?

Are you aware of Camille E. Acey's The Wind Down (https://www.wind-down.org/about/)? Camille is an active participant in The Maintainers.

> 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.

This reminded me of an essay by a tech blogger on software that is essentially finished and does not require new releases. He calls such software "cold-blooded" which may be a nice metaphor: https://dubroy.com/blog/cold-blooded-software/

John