The sunsetting process

Sunsetting an open source project is a difficult decision for a community. Making that decision requires the involvement of all active community participants, from maintainers to end users. In this section, we will look at the steps leading up to sunsetting; then, we will look at the step after the sunset officially happens.

Let’s get started with the first step in sunsetting a project: making sure everyone agrees it’s the right idea to do so.

Aligning on sunsetting in the community

If the project has a community of developers, it’s important to involve them in the decision-making process and to encourage them to take on the responsibility of maintaining the project or forking it to create a new project. This can help ensure that the knowledge and expertise invested in the project are not lost.

Sometimes, a community gets small enough that aligning on sunsetting isn’t hard. Getting the remaining community members together...