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I wish there was a better way for the community to handle this situation without the original author doing what we see here. Sometimes the original author dies unexpectedly for example and it's very hard to salvage the work into a maintained fork.

I wrote about this in 2018: https://kodare.net/2018/06/25/salvaging-abandoned-projects.h...

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You can set a successor in your GitHub settings: https://docs.github.com/github/setting-up-and-managing-your-...

That successor will gain access to the _public_ repos of your account after presenting a death certificate. As it's only for public repositories, it's a no-brainer for me.

We've started a non-profit to deal with such issues. It's a lot of work, but well worthwhile in the long term because part of the process is clarifying such issues, and the organization keeps on existing regardless of any individual member.

Still, even this situation is much better than what we had before. It's on github and so the project doesn't randomly vanish from existence when the owner isn't there to maintain the machine in their closet anymore. Contributors see each other and can realize "Hey, maintainer isn't active anymore but there's still interest in the project, maybe we should do something about this".

I added a sibling comment, I made https://www.codeshelter.co/ a while back. Maybe we should partner.

Oh, I mean we started a non-profit to support our particular project (https://overte.org/), not that we've got a general purpose organization providing service to whoever needs it.

So I'm not sure we're we're a good fit, in that we're neither something comparable to Code Shelter, nor unmaintained.

Ah, I see, thanks.

> "Hey, maintainer isn't active anymore but there's still interest in the project, maybe we should do something about this"

When the project isn't huge (think linux sized) it looks like the best solution, with able persons forking the project and trying to revive it. And if they don't manage to revive it (it's hard to know in advance who will be strong and available enough) maybe another fork will.

There is, I created it years ago, but unfortunately it hasn't taken off:

https://www.codeshelter.co/

Maybe I'm bad at marketing, it seems like a pity.

The idea is good. There's a couple of things I'd like to see. Is CodeShelter community-owned and driven? Or is it a company? The website codebase has no license and the Github application code is not open-source (or I overlooked). There's no privacy policy, ToS, and CoC. What is the maintainer vetting process? How is matchmaking taking place? What can I expect after giving away control? This may all be well-organized, but you can only find out in chat. So asking "Give us access to the repository" is a big step.

Thanks for the feedback! I answered this here:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37417643

Man, that's amazing! I'm going to start help you with marketing, beginning with a dedicated HN post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37417410

Thank you!

Hi. Just looking at the site. Under "adopted projects" you list Light Table. But the link just goes to the old, unmaintained repo. It would be great if you could also link to the maintained versions of repos.

The list has repos that Code Shelter has access to (ie ones that you can request to join). We don't have access to the new Light Table repo, so it wouldn't be apt to add there.

Apologies if I'm being dumb, but I'm confused. I assumed "adopted" implied that Code Shelter has some alternative repo that it (Code Shelter's community) is maintaining. Is that not the case? If not, then why list it at all?

No, "adopted" means that you gave Code Shelter permission to add contributors to your repo (the same repo you've always used). Otherwise, there wouldn't be a need for CS, since anyone can fork any repo.

CS is there to ensure continuity for the original repo (and releases).

I think what we need is for github to get in on it. Discoverability is 90% of the work.

That's very true, but that's another chicken and egg problem. GitHub won't add you if you don't have the numbers (they'd just implement this themselves, if anything).

I would certainly hope they implement it themselves!!

> it's very hard to salvage the work into a maintained fork.

Sometimes, perhaps, but https://github.com/eza-community/eza looked pretty easy, and they even had push access to change the exa repository to point to it.

> it's very hard to salvage the work into a maintained fork.

How is it hard? Just fork it.

Do read my article. I have a very clear example of why that actually doesn't work in practice.

I ready it before commenting actually...don't assume what you don't know, right? (it's against the rules: Please don't comment on whether someone read an article. "Did you even read the article? It mentions that" can be shortened to "The article mentions that". https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html ;p ;))

I agree your example is clear, I just think it's inaccurate, as in missing some perspective. My is perspective is: fork it, do your own marketing, profit. That's what I did to get where I am? Why think you have some right to someone else's work just 'cause they don't reply to you, and you can piggyback on their marketing without doing the work? That's wrong.

The fact you wrote an srticle about it doesn't mean we are all forced to agree with your conclusions and suggestions.

No, but it means that if you argue with me about what I say without having read it, then that makes you kinda silly.

It's also a suuuuper short little blog post. I almost always write very short stuff :P

> No, but it means that if you argue with me about what I say without having read it, then that makes you kinda silly.

Not as silly as the person who assumes they didn't read it, when they actually did ;P ;) xx ;p haha!

or you think the only way to disagree with your absolutely right ideas is to have not encountered them, because anyone encountering them can see they are unassailably right?

Come on, that's not a very good view of other people, and an overly inflated view of yourself. They must understand your ideas, just disagree. That's OK, isn't it?

Or, do you write expecting to be agreed with? Well, as you might say "that makes you kinda silly"--the internet is a diverse place!

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