Summary

In general, the decision to sunset an open source project can be a difficult one, and it is important for the project maintainers to communicate the decision clearly and to provide guidance to users on how to migrate to alternative solutions. However, in some cases, sunsetting a project may be necessary to ensure that resources are used effectively and that the project’s legacy is preserved.

Do note that sunsetting an open source project doesn’t equate to the failure of an open source project; when we looked at many of the project examples in this chapter, we saw they all had a significant impact in their primes, but conditions changed, which led to a sunset. And note that even though a project was sunsetted, it doesn’t mean it didn’t impact the future. For example, despite its eventual sunset, OpenOffice was an important open source project that helped promote free and open source software in the office productivity market. The project also inspired...