Talk:Main Page

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New Logo

  • I created a new logo for this wiki combining a "help wanted" sign with the Copyleft icon - a more symbolic aproach then the previous one. A scalable vector version is also available, but the file extension .svg is not allowed for uploading: please comment Matthias 23:10, 5 January 2007 (CET)
    • Hi Matthias! Thanks a lot for the great logo! I really like the shape and colors! The text is maybe a bit too generic, though. Maybe embed "Unmaintained Free Software" somehow (yes, it's very long), or maybe "Maintainer Wanted"? Also, which license do you apply to the logo? Can you release it under the GPL or a Creative Commons license? Btw, SVG uploads should work now. Cheers, Uwe. --Uwe Hermann 22:12, 8 January 2007 (CET)
      • Ah, I just saw that you put it under the GFDL, that's fine. Another possibility would have been public domain, but either is fine I think. --Uwe Hermann 22:15, 8 January 2007 (CET)


Maintainer Wanted

  • A new version with "maintainer wanted" according to the project URL. Matt 21:18, 10 January 2007 (CET)
    • Great, thanks! I put this up as the new logo now. --Uwe Hermann 02:37, 11 January 2007 (CET)


Fantastic

Hai everyone.. This seems to be really fentastic --Pradeep ( pradeep.8een@gmail.com )

This project needs a FAQ!

Uh.. This project seems to be a good idea, but there are some pressing questions that I couldn't find answers for in this wiki:

  • How do you guys decide which projects to include in the unmaintained list?
Apparently, the current process is to send e-mails to developers of candidate-for-takeover projects and sit around waiting for some sort of answer. If there's no answer within an arbitrary timeframe (it could be as long as 20 hours or 20 seconds, who knows?), the project is listed as unmaintained. Is this fair? Maybe the developer is taking a break, or he's involved with some other things, but I believe that this kind of involuntary takeover can make a lot of developers uneasy.
  • What is the due diligence process?
This echoes the previous question. I've seen some projects being marked as Unmaintained without any kind of justification anywhere. See Screen for an example of this. We need to respect the original developers, but if it is not possible to establish and prove that a project has been effectively abandoned, a fork can possibly more respectful to the original developers, instead of a takeover.
  • Can you explain, in practical terms, how should the project takeover be conducted?
Suppose that the candidate-for-takeover project is being hosted at SourceForge.net. Normally, people other than the main developer cannot do administrative tasks in his behalf. So, to actually take the helm of a project, start coding and distributing new versions, we would be doing a fork of sorts, instead of an effective takeover, as it is proposed in the first page of this wiki, because SourceForge, for example, will not allow such manoeuvers. Think of when people (or distros, such as Gentoo or BSD) look for a certain package. There's already a well-known URL to look for. The new maintainer wouldn't be able to ship code through that URL.
Remarks on above: Sourceforge does in fact have a procedure for orphaned projects. Of course you can register a new project, but for reasons mentioned above it may be usefull to continue with the existing name. What you need to do is register a new project with identical name as the project you want to take over ("re-register" it). The people at sourceforge will look at the issue, see if the project is really inactive, and try to contact the original authors. If the original project owner does not reply, (or agrees take-over) within reasonable time of about 2 weeks, the new registrator will be added as project admin and can continue the work.
This procedure is described on sourceforge here: http://sourceforge.net/docman/display_doc.php?docid=14041&group_id=1#project_alt
--81.171.13.80 11:51, 20 Aug 2005 (CEST)

--zanderredux at sourceforge

Re: This project needs a FAQ!

Hi, thanks for your questions and suggestions. I tried to answer most of your questions in the FAQ.

Some more notes:

  • I agree that involuntary takeover can be a problem and we try to avoid that.
    • Every project added here usually does have a justification, namely the "Source" field in the "History" box of a project. This can be:
      • An URL where the project's author states that he doesn't maintain the project anymore.
      • An email address of the person who added the project here (usually with an additional comment which says, e.g. "Emailed the author, no answer in two weeks").
      • Any other justification of why the project was added.
    • Screen, for example, was added because this site clearly says "GNU screen is NOT developed any more. The maintainers only fix serious bugs.".
  • It's true that it's not always possible to reuse the existing homepage (unfortunately), but at least SourceForge seems to allow this.

Thanks again for you contribution. --Uwe Hermann 18:47, 11 Jun 2005 (CEST)

Syndication

http://feeds.feedburner.com/new-ufs is an xml feed that imitates the Unmaintained Free Software:Recently Added Projects History page. --Matt 13:15, 29 May 2007 (CEST)

Statistics

Inputbox

The Inputbox Extension for MediaWiki would be useful to simplify the creation of new pages using the project template. We could set something like this on the frontpage: 

<inputbox>
type=create
editintro=Help:Contents
preload=Template:Project
width=25
</inputbox>

--Matt 22:01, 9 November 2007 (CET)

  • It's installed now, and used on the front page. Thanks! --Uwe Hermann 18:29, 20 January 2008 (CET)
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