I saw such a question on Zhihu before: If the founder of an open source project is no longer there, what should happen to this open source project that currently has many users? Can it be inherited by one’s relatives like an inheritance? But currently, there seems to be no relevant regulations to provide a very professional answer to this question. However, netizens’ answers also have many worth paying attention to.
@pansz: That’s what Open Source is for. How did Firefox come about? It’s because Netscape opened all its source code before going bankrupt. Therefore, this project was able to continue, although under a new name.
Valuable open source software will never die, it can even transcend your lifespan and become a continuation of your life. This is one of the values of open source.
@Bill Cheng: The founder is gone, but the code he left behind is still there. As long as someone is developing and maintaining this project, the open source project will continue. However, it’s a pity that for most open source projects, there may only be one developer in total, and although the project itself is used by people, there are no programmers to maintain and develop it, especially for many open source projects from China.
Take the popular fakethunder a while ago as an example (author don’t hit me), if the author quits, then this project will no longer be managed, because based on the current state of this project on GitHub, although many people have forked it, there are really almost no code contributions. More people just point out various problems with the software in the issues and ask the author to modify it.
There are only so many programmers, and one programmer can create many open source projects, so in most cases, if the founder of an open source project, not to mention dying, just doesn’t want to do it anymore, then this open source project is over.
Open source may be a kind of honor in the programmer’s world, but in the general public’s world, it is ultimately just a candle, burning out and extinguishing.
@Feng Dong (Adobe programmer): I feel that the existing online answers are too idealized. The fact is: the project is not easy to handle!
Open source is not a self-stabilizing model. Whether an open source project can succeed depends on the founder or main leader. If the founder has an accident, it only depends on whether there is a successor who can inherit the mantle.
However, many founders of open source projects have lived vigorously through many large companies, and their search for successors seems more reliable than some large companies. So basically, the reliability of popular open source software is no worse than that of large company software.
@Gong Bozhi (UC Browser WP version product manager): In fact, this problem essentially has some technical operational issues.
The departure of an open source project founder is actually similar to the situation of team members breaking up/project transfer. If there is advance notice, change permissions, or even transfer accounts; if there is no notice, new members will naturally open new branches/projects, leave a tribute in the about section, follow the agreements that can be followed, and if they cannot be followed, contact family members/original relevant personnel, obtain understanding and issue a statement to change the agreement.
Open source is a matter between gentlemen, so it’s not that complicated.
@Twisted Python (Python enthusiast): If many people use it, it will be continued to be maintained. Refer to the matplotlib project, whose founder John Hunter passed away in 2012 due to cancer (mourning), and the version was still 1.1 at that time, now it’s 1.4.2.
@Ou Ye: Although we are discussing what happens after the project founder, we cannot ignore that many open source software projects have already stopped when their founders are still alive! So whether the project founder is there or not doesn’t matter, the key is whether the project itself has value, whether there are potential strong market demands and user groups. If there is demand, naturally someone will continue the project!
True democracy will not degenerate due to the passing of great and glorious people. True open source will not perish due to the departure of the founder.
@Ma Hongpu: I personally think this is related to the project’s management method.
Committee-based organizational forms have the least impact, such as FreeBSD and Debian. I can’t imagine how much impact the departure or death of the founder or leader would have on the project. Just elect a successor in advance.
But projects mainly maintained by individuals are another matter. For example, after the famous hacker Aaron committed suicide, the status of his several projects is worrying. In this case, if the project has enough users, lacks other alternatives, and has enthusiastic developers willing to stand up, it is likely that a new fork will be established to continue development (continuing the original project will encounter various issues such as naming rights, account ownership, especially if the author passed away suddenly). If this fork progresses well, it can be expected that most users and developers will migrate there. But if no one is willing to take the lead, this project is likely to die. Generally speaking, projects with rigid demand will eventually continue.
A very interesting case is Linux, the famous “benevolent dictatorship” model. If Linus suddenly has an accident, Linux certainly won’t lack developers, but the leadership issue will probably be chaotic for a while.
@justjavac: PHP lightweight forum esoTalk founder Simon Zerner was reported missing on June 26, 2009, and declared dead on August 13 at the age of 24. His brother Toby Zerner took over his work, responsible for maintaining and updating esoTalk.
Last year, he began creating a new forum program Flarum. The forum source code is hosted on GitHub, and when the first preview version was released, it received more than 1000 stars on the same day.
Flarum lightweight forum first version released, based on Laravel framework. For some details, you can check: https://www.smolderforge.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=7758 In Memoriam: Simon Zerner paragraph.
@er3456qi: I think it all depends on the situation. If the project is very popular, someone will definitely take over, but if there are popular alternatives to this project, then this project may gradually become quiet, refer to webpy. Although webpy is still being maintained, it can be seen that it is not as popular as other frameworks now.
@Da Ren: After the founder of matplotlib passed away, matplotlib is also well maintained; and the community also established a fund for his wife and children to help their lives.
@Ji Ye: The forked versions overshadowed by the author’s brilliance will emerge, differentiating in various directions.
No updates doesn’t mean disappearance, but no change, no new technology added, won’t affect current operations, but if there are bugs, depending on the degree, new forked versions will be created or alternatives will be sought.
The vitality of open source lies in keeping up with the times. Without new elements added, it will only be replaced by new ones. There is demand for existence significance. In the past, there was in-depth research on paper, now it’s gradually outdated due to computers. Simply put, software has a life cycle.
@Huang Yonggang: In fact, this question does not have a standard professional answer, but it can be explained from both legal and secular perspectives.
From a legal perspective:
- The naming right remains unchanged.
- Economic benefits belong to property heirs.
- The rights to use, modify, and redistribute remain unchanged as per the agreement.
From a secular perspective:
- The IT industry is really backward.
- Whether the founder of preserved egg lean meat porridge is dead or not, KFC can still make and sell it.
@Xiao Lv Mu: The project will be immersed in the long river of history. If someone continues to develop it, it will continue to emit residual heat; if no one develops it, it will become a symbol of spirit. History will remember it.
@Li A Ling: I have thought about this question very seriously. But only for my own project.
It’s not difficult to understand my project. But it’s troublesome to continue developing along my current code. It’s not difficult, just troublesome.
For users, pTeX-ng’s current user base is not large, so if I have an accident, it won’t have much impact. It’s just that if I really have an accident, I’m afraid many ideas won’t be realized.
This is the current state of XeTeX. Because the maintainer of XeTeX is really just a maintainer, with almost no development. However, for many star projects, such as Emacs, it’s not very likely to die because the founder died. But there’s a problem: maintaining Emacs is prone to various strains.
@Da Mo Tou - Nuo Tie (software craftsman): Generally, you can find similar open source software replacements. If you have to use this one, just spend money to find someone to maintain it, or take over yourself, at least you have the code. It’s really desperate when a closed-source software company goes bankrupt.
@vczh: When Golang came out before, I said what if Google doesn’t want Golang one day? Others said: Even if Google dies, Golang is open source, and someone will definitely continue to maintain it.
@Chen Jinwei: Open source is still manageable, fork it, many people can make it thrive, good things will be inherited. On the contrary, a single closed tool will be lost because the author dies.
@Yang Yi: If someone uses it, someone will continue to develop it. OpenSSL is still being updated now, what are we afraid of? However, a responsible open source project must have complete documentation. Inline or wiki, writing documentation is a good habit.
In Conclusion
As Taiwanese open source promoter Max Huang said in a previous interview article: “With code but no community, no one knows about it. With community and code promotion, everyone knows about it.” If a good open source project can gather enough enthusiasts in the community, even if the project founder leaves, the project can develop well. So when you intentionally want to open source a project, it’s best to think about how to run this community well.
Reprinted with permission: Developer Relations »
