David Chisnall (*Now with 50% more sarcasm!*)4d ago

It is okay to release a F/OSS project where the expected set of users is you.

It is okay to declare that a F/OSS project that you maintain is feature complete and stop.

It is okay to stop writing new code in a F/OSS project and just review patches from other people.

It is okay to stop reviewing patches once other people are familiar enough with the codebase to do so.

It is okay to admit that a F/OSS project that you created has so much technical debt that people would be better off reimplementing it than depending on it (especially if you write down the lessons that they should learn).

It is okay if your F/OSS project doesn't meet the requirements of some potential group of users, as long as no one applies pressure to force them to adopt it.

It is okay to tell a company that depends on your F/OSS project that it's unsupported and they can pay developers to contribute if they really need it.

It's okay to say 'I created this F/OSS project to meet my personal needs, but someone else made something that meets those needs better and so I'll use theirs instead'.

It's okay to say 'I made this F/OSS project as an experiment, and the result was that I learned that this approach is a bad idea'.

Show threadPhilip Mallegol-Hansen

@david_chisnall After all, that is why just about every FOSS license allows you to fork and develop onwards on your own.

It’s okay to just use my project as a stepping stone towards the project *you* want, without expecting me to get involved.

Feels like a lot of folks out there don’t consider that option for whatever reason.

Jun 3 at 7:53pmWeb
Show threadEntirio Rotokoly4d ago

@philip @david_chisnall

I clone the code, compile it, debug my problem and make changes to a project, sometimes reporting back/making a pull request. In fact I also do consider forking, but for often loosing focus/attention and for having to interact/judge other people's work I let it be.

Also it has the potential to generate confusion amongst the users and it makes it more unclear on where to find/report/address security issues.

Yet there are successful forks. LibreOffice and NextCloud, to name prominent examples.