Graceful Exit

It’s always sad, but not uncommon, to see some open source maintainer burn out. We build these projects for any number of personal reasons, we share them with the world. If we’re lucky someone will find it interesting or useful. If we’re really lucky someone will share our passion and we’ll find or build a community.

But our lives and interests change, and communities aren’t always filled only with people that understand the relationship. many people feel that sharing something publicly comes with an obligatipn of support. That gets tiring.

How we handle these situation, specifically during these times, can say a lot about our character. I was recently reading about Reticulum, and came accross the maintainer’s explanation for ceasing public work on the project. While I’m sorry they were in this situation, I think they showed some real grace and, more than their personal explanation, really got to the heart of Open Source.

…building what comes next is not my responsibility anymore. It’s yours.

Open Source projects like this aren’t an offer of free support, they’re an offer that if the project doesn’t meet your needs you’re welcome to modify it so that it does.