[Themaintainers] Death of open projects and its rituals?

[Bastien Guerry]

Hi Jan,

> 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]

When it comes to describing Free Software that is no longer maintained,
I think the most common adjectives are "unmaintained", "archived", and
"inactive" - but they are not metaphors, so I'm not sure it answers your
question (sorry).

I don't read "dead" or even the notion of an "end".

"Archived" may have become more popular since GitHub, because archiving
a repository is a clear signal you send to potential users/contributors.

But the more neutral "unmaintained" has been around forever.

> -  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. 

I would not call them "rituals" for Free Software projects but
recommendations on how to cleanly end a project.

2 cts,

-- 
 Bastien Guerry
 https://bzg.fr