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Ettiquette For Restarting Abandoned Open Source Projects? 60

Posted by Cliff from the avoiding-toe-steppage dept.
nicsterrr asks: "What does one do when a promising open source project stops dead with no word from the developer(s)? I have been considering contributing to a certain sorceforge hosted project over the past few months, but unfortunately all development seems to have stopped and the main developer has vanished (from the internet at least). I understand that the GPL states that GPL source code can be used in derived work if the licence is unchanged, but I am hesitant just to 'hijack' the work done by (it seems) just one person, without first having an understanding of what his thoughts are first. In addition, there are almost no supporting comments in the code, and no separate developer documentation. What would you do in this situation if you were interested in furthering the undocumented, unfinished, and currently abandoned work (which at first glance seems to have potential) of someone else, and your attempts to contact them have been in vain?"
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Ettiquette For Restarting Abandoned Open Source Projects? More

Ettiquette For Restarting Abandoned Open Source Projects?

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  • Fork you! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by TheSHAD0W ( 258774 ) on Thursday November 21, 2002 @11:35PM (#4729154) Homepage
    What you're essentially doing is creating a development fork, with the original "tine" not being developed.

    I suppose you should take some time and try and contact the original developers, and see if you can get an official go-ahead. But if you can't, go right ahead.

    In the worst case, if the original maintainers come back and cause such a stink about your taking over the project, they can take what you produced and merge or develop their own fork.

    • Re:Fork you! (Score:5, Interesting)

      by GreyWolf3000 ( 468618 ) on Thursday November 21, 2002 @11:48PM (#4729222) Journal
      Yah, but keep in mind that he wants to keep the old project name and assume control of development. I think there is a distinction between that and a fork; a big one. "Project foo is now being actively maintained by me" requires a lot more tying of loose ends than "Project foo is derived from the abandoned bar, and is picking up where it left off."

      • Re:Fork you! (Score:5, Insightful)

        by photon317 ( 208409 ) on Thursday November 21, 2002 @11:55PM (#4729260)

        Of course, when you think about it, there's really not much reason to go about it that way. If what you intend to do is take over a seemingly-abandoned project, it's more politically correct to start a new project "based on", and essentially you've got a new fork and the old code-base stays stale. On your project page put some big shiny info and links to the old project and state that it seems to be derelict and you're trying to replace it and keep yours up to date or whatever.

        Eventually Google pageranking will start bringing you up on searches for their project anways as you supplant them in relevance - and most importantly if/when they come back to life they won't feel violated like they would if you had taken over the main branch of the product, original name and all, and named yourself head honcho.
      • Of course if you're going to fork it like that, you'd have to call the new program SINB (SINB Is Not Bar) or WASABI (WASABI's A Substitute Alike Bar Intentionally) or some other terribly clever recursive acronym..

        I hope this isn't about VAX btw; that's mine and if you're one of the people who's been mailing me about it you should have got a reply suggesting you use vgetty instead..

    • Re:Fork you! (Score:5, Insightful)

      by PD ( 9577 ) <slashdotlinux@pdrap.org> on Friday November 22, 2002 @12:17AM (#4729389) Homepage Journal
      If the original maintainers come back and raise a stink you can tell them to screw off. It's not polite to give people permission to take the source and fork it, and then to complain when people do just that.

  • Just do it. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by LinuxLuddite ( 516803 ) on Thursday November 21, 2002 @11:36PM (#4729159)
    Chances are the original author is no longer interested in the code, and may not want to hear about it anymore. Either that, or they've lost their Internet connectivity, moved on with their lives, or maybe even died. In all these case, I don't think they'll give a rat's ass if you take over their code and clean it up. And if they do, well, you can ask them to help you maintain your forked version :-) Leaving a project abandoned because somebody might not want you to work on it is wasteful, and goes against the whole Open-Source philosophy.

  • Not taking an abandoned Open Source project... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by inerte ( 452992 ) on Thursday November 21, 2002 @11:43PM (#4729196) Homepage Journal
    is like leaving a question without answer.

  • If they didn't want you to.. (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    It wouldn't be GPL'd. That's what the license is there for. Use it.

  • Eric Raymond (Score:1, Informative)

    by fava ( 513118 )
    Didnt Eric Raymond write an essay about that at one time.

    I seem to recall that he formulated a set of guidelines from
    when he took over the fetchmail project, but I cant seem to
    find it on line.
  • Well i have not been in the same situation per say, however I am involved in some web app development that has seemingly been un edited in quite some time. So I have picked up wher ethe original people have left off. They did ask for a useage fee, but since I helped debug and troubleshoot the application I feel no need to further help line their pockets since they left me high and dry. I still use the application almost everyday in my work as a web developer but I dont feel any need to share with the originators and they dont bother asking me to. I think that if you have stumble across an abandond peice of software that has potential RUN WITH IT, hell thats what Gates essintially did and look at where he is now. Of course I hope your not so close minded as Bill and wont ruin a perectly good idea in the process. Before I start to ramble (very tired) I wish you the best of luck in your experience.

  • My Advice: here's what to write. (Score:4, Funny)

    by Profane Motherfucker ( 564659 ) on Thursday November 21, 2002 @11:54PM (#4729257) Journal
    Just to clear yourself of any liability, write the following letter to the former developer, and post a copy publically on the project page.

    Dear [open source guy who abandoned a project]:

    I've looked with great interest at [project]. The sourceforge page shows that the project activity is nearly zero, and the last software release was done almost three years ago.

    It seems like such a waste to have the project stagnate, so I wanted to take this opportunity to pass along a few comments. Namely, I want to inform you that I will be resuming development of this fantastic application. You've done a fine job, and it will be a great honor to continue in your footsteps. I also have a few other things, I feel you should know.

    I don't know how to put this delicately, but: YOU LAZY FUCK, YOUR SHIT IS MY SHIT NOW. It's TOO FUCKING BAD you can't finish a single fucking thing that you started, you ass jockey sloth. NEXT TIME, WHY DON'T YOU MAN THE FUCK UP. Take a little responsiblity for ONCE IN YOUR LIFE YOU WORTHLESS SACK OF PUBES.

    LAZY FUCKS like you probably don't even finish taking a shit. WHAT THE FUCK IS YOUR FUCKING PROBLEM? YOU DISAPPEAR LIKE SOME FUCKING FBI SUPA DOUBLE TOP SECRET AGENT. You are a failed open source developer. WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU RUNNING FROM? The honest answer, as a failed open source developer, is your fucking shame!

    Please feel free to send me any comments or advice. I look forward to hearing from you.

    Warm regards,
    PMF
    • Seems he died of burns from a heavy toasting on Slashdot. He was in the hospital for months and later developed an addiction to trolling posts on FARK and alt.sysadmin.recovery. Eventually someone used a major LART on him as a mercy killing. BTW, Seems he had your last name, maybe he was your brother??

      And the moral of this story Kids is don't post on Slashdot from an AOL account.

  • was it abandoned... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by zogger ( 617870 ) on Thursday November 21, 2002 @11:56PM (#4729271) Homepage Journal
    Was it really abandoned or did the guy have something happen to him in meatworld? I mean it could be anything, got locked up, got sick, moved to ubangiland, anything. With that said, here's one solution, you can fork it immediately,get to work on it,and if/when the original guy shows back up,contact him and either agree to rejoin efforts-or not.

  • It doesn't matter (Score:4, Insightful)

    by noz ( 253073 ) on Friday November 22, 2002 @12:24AM (#4729426)
    It is within your right under tha authors' chosen license that you may modify the source and make it publically available (which it must be :)).

    I personally think it's great you're concerned with etiquette, but the author is uncontactable. If he contacts you in the future with concerns about your work, it appears you already have the manners to listen to him, at any time.

    Good luck. :)
    • It is within your right under tha authors' chosen license that you may modify the source and make it publically available (which it must be :)).


      Please read the GPL [gnu.org].

      There is no requirement to make any code "publicly available" ever.

      Simply modifying GPLed code doesn't even require that you agree to any license.

      Please try to resist the urge to talk out of your ass in the future.

      -Peter
      • From the page you link

        When we speak of free software, we are referring to freedom, not price. Our General Public Licenses are designed to make sure that you have the freedom to distribute copies of free software (and charge for this service if you wish), that you receive source code or can get it if you want it

        Which bodily orifice are you speaking out of?
        • You have interpreted "if you want it" in a far more general sense than it means. The following quote (which BTW is part of the body of the license, not the preamble) says:

          Activities other than copying, distribution and modification are not covered by this License; they are outside its scope. The act of running the Program is not restricted, and the output from the Program is covered only if its contents constitute a work based on the Program (independent of having been made by running the Program). Whether that is true depends on what the Program does.


          The GPL can not force anyone to make changes to any GPLed program public, since it doesn't even apply to you unless you redistribute the program.

          When the license is taken as a whole "if you want it" clearly only refers to people who have received a binary derived from a GPLed work.

          Any restriction or burden on the use of a a GPLed program (to include modification, which is freedom 1 [gnu.org]) is at odds with the spirit of the license and the GNU, and is clearly not the intent of the license.

          I am afraid you are spreading FUD about the GPL. To paraphrase, "If you use GPLed code you have to release all your code under the GPL." I don't believe that you are doing it intentionally, but you are spreading this falsehood.

          -Peter
          • I am afraid you are spreading FUD about the GPL

            And I'm afraid that you are spreading FUD about what the question was in the first place. Get off your damn soapbox for a second, and read the original posting.

            "Nicsterrr" is "considering contributing" to this project. He is not asking about using it himself, or modification for himself. (or herself, sorry ladies)

            I'll be happy to appoint you as GPL Nazi for Slashdot, but as such, you should learn to read the actual questions before going off half cocked.

  • Been there - Stunnel (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Brian Hatch ( 523490 ) on Friday November 22, 2002 @01:13AM (#4729708) Homepage Journal
    I have been in almost exactly the same position you find yourself. Mike Trojnara, who was (and again is) the developer of Stunnel fell off the face of the Internet for a while back in 2000, and there were several problems that I discovered in the code during his absense. The machine running it was no longer under his control, and eventually dissapeared alltogether, so I took all my archives and started creating new versions. To make it obvious I'd taken over, aside from being blatant about it on the mailing list (which was still working) I labeled my versions differently - 3.8p1 instead of 3.9, for example. Eventually Mike found his way back onto the net, and I promptly and happily handed the developer's sword back to him. His next version was build directly from my latest version (though he later removed the 'goto' I put in there just because I could.)

    I had always planned on giving it back to him if he wanted it (I wasn't comfortable developing crypto code here in the US at the time - my rights were still very vaguely defined at the time) so in my experience it went off without a hitch, and there was no fork, just a smooth transition from one to the other.

    If you want to continue maintaining it, and are releasing it under the GPL (which I assume you must), there's no reason the original author can't fork off yours or maintain his older branch separately.

    I'd say make every effort to reach the original author, and if you don't get anywhere, start maintaining it. You have every legal right, and even the moral right when Open Source code stagnates.

  • Interesting Trend... (Score:1, Informative)

    by eWarz ( 610883 )
    Alot of open source projects have died of late. It would be nice if new developers would pick up where the old ones left off. There are also alot of projects out there that are in need of help. For example ReactOS, an open source, modular windows NT clone [reactos.com] has a bright future, it just needs more developers. It is currently farther along then any other 'windows clone' project around. I'm not affiliated with the above said project. There are also alot of closed source projects that are dead, but those are another story ---- MetaWorx Software (Under Reconstruction) [metaworx.net]

  • Um... me too? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by dacarr ( 562277 ) on Friday November 22, 2002 @01:44AM (#4729860) Homepage Journal
    I'm gonna go on and concur with everybody on here, with an interesting note of trivia.

    I once checked with the Free Software Foundation on whether they knew anything about the OS/2 port of EMACS (last check had it at 19.3.x or something really old). As they were unable to contact anybody on that, I was told that I was welcome to do what I would with it, be it build the original code or just let it fester.

    That's the really cool thing about GNU - a side effect is that if somebody stops the show for some reason and abandons the project (in this case...well, OS/2, you do the math), you are welcome to pick up whatever pieces were left and run with the torch. Sourceforge even seems to allow for that, with the resources already there.

  • Check unmaintained-free-software.org (Score:5, Informative)

    by tawaste ( 307950 ) on Friday November 22, 2002 @01:53AM (#4729901)
    Have you checked it's not in http://www.unmaintained-free-software.org/ [unmaintain...ftware.org]

  • OK, am I the only one (Score:3, Interesting)

    by anthony_dipierro ( 543308 ) on Friday November 22, 2002 @02:12AM (#4729980) Journal
    wondering if he's talking about one of my abandoned software packages?
  • ...your OWN email address does not bounce.

    I have been approached by four or five people so far to resume work on an open source project that has been defunct, but I have been unable to respond to, like, three of them because their emails bounced! And one of these guys was from IBM...you'd figure they'd at least have email working.
    • Are you sure you're not on an anti-spammer blacklist, and thus blocked by their ISP? It's really easy to be wrongly blacklisted (without notification), and virtually impossible to get de-listed without a court order (if you can identify the list maintainers). And the best part is that there are so many blacklists, it's impossible to check them all to see if you're one of the unluckly winners of their Shit-On-Some-Random-Sucker lottery.
    • > And one of these guys was from IBM...you'd
      > figure they'd at least have email working.

      Nah, last I heard they have to use Notes.
  • IANAL, but it sound like you've made a good faith effort to contact the old developer. I would make an effort to find out if they claim any ownership over the NAME of the program before taking it.

    Remember: Linux is GPL, and you can do what you want with it, but Linus owns the name. If the boys in Redmond try to put out something called Linux they will get a knock on the door from attorneys representing Mr. Torvolds. Same goes for you. Find out if the name is trademarked (unlikely, but hey, CYA).

    Also, you have large an audience here at /. at this moment. Why not just tell everyone what program you have your eye on? Perhaps someone knows the author. Or you may get some volunteers to help you comb the code.
    • The project I have been looking at is "kmatplot". As someone involved in areas such as signal processing, this is a project that could be very useful combined with the numerical packages such as Octave, and combining it with a KDE frontend for Octave would produce a very useful numercial maths package.

  • lynx, elinks, links, etc... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by josepha48 ( 13953 ) on Friday November 22, 2002 @01:26PM (#4732828) Journal
    The original lynx project well created a simple console / text based browser that does not do tables or frames. Supposedly a program called links was born. It went to about release .96 and the author stoped makeing new versions or so it seems. Someone used that and made elinks and then someone else did 'links-gui'. AFAIK they all started with the same source code, but they all have different or slightly different goals. Some of the projects are dead and yet others live on and continue to move slowly forward.

    I have had this happen with code I wrote. Basically I have stopped developing the code. Hey it works it does what I want it to do and I am happy with it and so are others. However there are a few that want more out of it so they send me an email and ask me if they can modify it or do whatever to it. I say yes, go ahead, just call it something different please. It works. To me it is basiclly 'open source coding courtesy'. Just tell the project owner that you want to make changes to the code or that you have made changes. The most you can do is send them an email and hope they reply. Often they will say have at it.

  • As an "abandoner"... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by coyote-san ( 38515 ) on Friday November 22, 2002 @02:28PM (#4733491)
    As an "abandoner," I don't care if you fork a dead project (or a live one) as long as you make a reasonable effort to let me know and use a sufficiently distinct name to avoid confusion.

    N.B., you don't HAVE to contact me, but it's a nice courtesy because I might be able to hook you up with others doing similar work, or I might have something in the pipeline very similar to what you want to do but which I don't yet consider publishable.

    It sounds like you did everything you could, so fork the project and give it a new name and don't worry about it. For a year or so, you'll want to mention the fork from the old project, but just in case it revives or there are other forks in progress - it makes it much easier to coordinate efforts in the future.

    BTW, reasons I've dropped off the net include travel, busy with work, busy with life, busy with skills development, etc. I've occasionally dropped it because I realized that there was a much cleaner way of solving the problem, but sometimes the approach is so different that I create a new project instead of having an abrupt transition in the old one. Hell, I've even abandoned a project because it depended on another group for some critical libraries, but their attitude made it too time consuming to use their library but impossible to work around them. (Yeah, I'm talking to you Debian apt developers. Apt is great, but it's not a full CMS system.)

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