If you want a mature protobuf implementation you should probably buy one. Expecting some guy/gal on the internet to maintain one for your for free seems ill advised.
Nobody is asking for professional quality standards from hobby projects. At best, they are asking for hobby projects to advertise themselves as such, and not as "this is a library for [x] that you can use in your stuff with the expectations of [maintenance/performance/compatibility/etc.]."
Resume-driven development seems to cause people to oversell their hobby projects as software that is ready to have external users.
> If you want a mature protobuf implementation you should probably buy one
No software is ever developed this way. For some reason, libraries are always free. Approximately nobody will buy paid libraries.
I suspect this is in no small part because figuring out a licensing (edit: pricing!) model that is both appealing to consumers and sustainable for authors is damn near impossible.
That's also work. You don't get to ask the hobby programmer to do your work of vetting serious/maintained projects for you. As the professional with a job, you have to do that. If some rando on GitHub writes in their readme that it's maintained, but lies. You're the idiot for believing him. He's probably 12 years old, and you're supposedly a professional.
> No software is ever developed this way.
That's just inaccurate. In my day job we pay for at least 3-4 3rd party libraries that we either have support contracts on or that were developed for us along with a support contract. Besides those there's also the myriad of software products, databases, editors, Prometheus, grafana, that we pay for.
Software people really underestimate how much business guys are willing to pay for having somebody to call. It's not "infinitely scalable" in the way VC's love, but it's definitely a huge business opportunity.
That means the only threat you have as a producer of code (once the code is handed over) is the threat of withdrawing service. That means the only ways to sell licenses are:
* Build your own licensing service (or offer SaaS)
* Sell the code for a high price upfront
* Sell service contracts
Also there are lots of lovely projects maintained at high levels by hobbyists, and plenty of abandonware that was at some point paid for
There certainly are. I would never say to disregard anything because it was a hobby project. You just don't get to expect it being that way.
My basic point is that a hobby project can never take responsibility. If you have a support contract you are allowed to have some expectation of support. If you do not, then no expectation is warranted and everything you get is a gift.
A "mature" label carries the same problem. You are expecting the author to label something for you. That's work. If you're pulling from the commons, you must respect that people can label stuff whatever they like, and unmotivated blanket lies are not illegal.
I will say I get great satisfaction from the little envparse library I wrote needing near-0 maintenance. It’s a rare treat to be able to consider any project truly done.