Unmaintained Free Software Projects

DAldredge sent us linkage to the unmaintained free software project list (if you can't figure this one out based on the name, seek help quickly). A very good idea that I'm pleased to see implemented. There's a lot of orphaned software out there... some of it because it's pretty useless, but others just because people move on. Hopefully a site like this can help us breath life back into the good ones.

Re:This site is unnecessary.

I can see that this page is going to be attract free software wannabees, who see the opportunity to take responsibility for an already partially complete codebase in order to try to get kudos as the project manager.

Actually, my first thought was that here's a place I can get my feet wet in *nix development without screwing anything up too badly :-)

I'm sure there may end up being some glory-seekers who jump in and adopt a project just to be in charge of something; but there are probably just as many people like me, who want to contribute, but don't have the skills or knowledge to contribute to a high-profile "live" project like Apache or BSD or Linux. Think of it as a chance at an open-source development internship.

Re:Won't happen

There's quite some interesting stuff left - drivers that manage old hardware the original programmer doesn't have access to anymore and some niche software some people rely on, but that doesn't have a use for the general public.
I'd say there are a number of umaintained packages out there that are being worked on in 1000 places (ported to new systems) because the original maintainer isn't around anymore. This sort of duplicated work can be avoided by finding a new maintainer...

Re:UFO ?

It's not the same, though in the long run merging them will probably make sense.

They're very similar, but not exactly the same.
unmaintained.sourceforge.net [slashdot.org] wants to create a list (probably with the purpose of someone just taking the initiative and releasing a new version), UFO [bero.org] wants to keep the stuff alive while trying to look for new maintainers and requires the consent of the original maintainer. So far, it hasn't really started off (largely my fault; I started it, didn't have enough time to work a lot on it myself, and didn't manage to start a real community effort). Contributors are VERY welcome...

Re:NEW opensource project

Try this: http://whatweneed.de/ [whatweneed.de].

Unmaintained code in the Linux kernel as well.

There is a lot of unmaintained code in the Linux kernel as well. Device drivers for obsolete hardware, seldom used filesystems, that kind of thing.

Usually this is due to the original author no longer having access to working hardware, or a platform that the hardware will work in.

Last year I tried to investigate why my sound card's Midi port wouldn't work with the drivers in the kernel. My sound card was on a weird daughterboard and not easy to remove without a hacksaw. Once I finally pulled the thing out, I dicovered that the main chips model number was later than any of those listed in the driver.

An email to the Linux Kernel mailing list received one reply, from Alan Cox, stating that no-one was now maintaining that code. In the end I amended the code myself after reverse engineering a DOS device driver. It didn't help that no specs for this particular chip were available.

Simillary the UMSDOS filesystem was broken in the 2.1.x kernel code for over 50 revisions, as the addition of dentries broke it big style. Once someone else took over the code things started to work, but it wasn't really reliable until very recently.

DeadMeat

They should have called the site DeadMeat!
Does anyone know what happend to crackdot's game Golgatha (sp?)

Wrong

The people who claim that no one will maintain old projects is simply wrong. For instance, I've been looking for the author of TkWine, a TCL utility that helps you update and maintain a WINE installation. Why? This is a utility I find useful, and it is nearly fully functional,and I'd hate to have to start from the beginning to get to where he/she has it now. The point is to get a system set up with the least amount of pain possible, and this is a useful tool to do it with. If I had to go and write the software from scratch, it would be just as easy to do the wine installation by hand.

As it stands though, TkWine has fallen into a state of disrepair. There is no one to contribute the bug fixes I've made to. So I fix them on my system and no one else gets to benefit from my debugging efforts.

If we, as a community, are going to simply let projects die when the original author moves on, then we might as well use closed source solutions. M$,et.al., put end user in this situation. They basically say, "We've moved on, so you're stuck with what you have, the way it is."

Note: If anyone knows how to contact the author of TkWine, can you tell him drop a line to [e-mail] so that I can ask him for permission to put the package on this sight?

Adopt-a-coder

I take no credit for this, I just feel it's appropriate. If the owner is reading, feel free to take all credit for it.

"I'd like to announce the adopt-a-coder program. After many long hours debugging why their program segfaults when given an input of 64910 characters long, but only if it doesn't contain the letter a and it's an even-numbered day, some programmers understandably... lose it.

You see, this is where the adopt-a-program comes in... after these poor souls go mad, somebody else needs to work on the code... and then they go mad, and so on. Eventually the program will be put into a usable state, but there's an excess number of insane programmers out there.

Here's what I suggest: Adopt-a-coder. For $10 per day, you can help feed an insane coder. All you need is a 12 pack of cola and cold pizza and/or ramen noodles. Provide him/her with a dedicated DSL liine, and rehabilitate him. It's a hard job, but it's also rewarding. You see, most people don't know that programming has little to do with computers, and more to do with large quantities of caffeine and memory loss. Unfortunately, the fallout from this is very serious.

PLEASE, help an insane coder. It's the least you can do."