[Themaintainers] Death of open projects and its rituals?

[admin at commoncapital.org.uk]

I hear a lot of talk of 'composting' in certain corners of civil 
society.

In fact, there have even been a few events about composting where it 
wasn't entirely clear if they were about metaphorical composting or 
actual composting!

D.

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Dan Gregory
Independent Advisor

dan at commoncapital.org.uk
07765 021325
@commoncapitai

www.commoncapital.org.uk [1]

On 09/03/2025 07:43, Bastien Guerry wrote:

> 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 When it comes to describing Free Software that is no longer maintained,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,


Links:
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[1] http://www.commoncapital.org.uk
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