Ask Slashdot: Spreading the Word About At-Risk Open Source Projects? 115
An anonymous reader writes "There is a piece of software, released under the Modified BSD license, that risks becoming abandonware and, IMHO, is worth being saved. Where can I post an announcement to find people than can take care of it?" This seems like a problem that a lot of projects run into; is there a clearinghouse for open-source projects at risk?
Fork it (Score:3, Informative)
Well, first of all, there's no such thing as "abandonware" in open source. The term is used to describe closed source program in which was offered at one point and then largely forgotten about by its developers and therefore not ported to newer operating systems and/or architectures despite having an active or semi-active user base.
With open source software, the code is always available so anyone who wants to continue maintaining it can always do so. If you, as a user, care enough about the project, and the maintainer seems to have left town, then it's up to you to continue maintaining it and/or fork your own version. If you're not a developer, then hire one. You can't just rally the community and say, "hey there, somebody please support this software for me! It's BSD-licensed so I don't have to pay you!"