Re: Hackathons ...good or bad? 2 sociologists came to a conclusion and it ain't good.
 

You are right, it rots.

Re: Hackathons ...good or bad? 2 sociologists came to a conclusion and it ain't good.
 

What did I say? "Yes, but, free, someone else, bla bla bla" :D

It is a lofty ideal but not that common in practice. What good is it to me that someone could continue if nobody does? For any useful purpose, an abandoned project is dead.

That is a silly argument that smacks of ideology. I did not build my own house or grow my own food even though neither of the two are particularly difficult. Does it mean I did not need them enough? Sure, when a zombie apocalypse comes and I face starvation, I will grow my own food. But that means I will not be able to do many other things I am able to do now. We cannot all do all things. There are many reasons for that: lack of time, lack of skills... or simply because someone else may do a better job of it whilst I may make a better job of something else, to a mutual benefit.

Besides, when I say "no one picks up the code and keeps it alive", I mean literally "no one", including myself. You may say that I thus contribute to its death and I do not deny it. All I am saying is that the "FOSS code never dies" claim is false. Who or what has caused the death is irrelevant.

Re: Hackathons ...good or bad? 2 sociologists came to a conclusion and it ain't good.
 

To summarise it in fewer words, FOSS code has the potential to live forever, but that does not mean the potential is always realised.

Re: Hackathons ...good or bad? 2 sociologists came to a conclusion and it ain't good.
 

Sure, and there are lots of softwae that deserves to be forgotten,

Bur still bear with me a moment; if I understood it correctly You had in mind some software you found useful, so much that you publically here lament the stagnation of it. Hence you have the option of either finding something else to replace it or to take matters in your own hands and do something about it.

The analogy of building your own house or growing your own foor does not fully apply here; as I understand it you are a software smith by trade and training, just like I am.
We are essentially in the trade of building our own tools, that is what we do and when we see a problem we almost subconsiously try to apply our set of mind tools to it. We have the skills and tools already; it is just to consider if we are willing to devote time for it, if the cause is worth and useful to us.

There is also one difference to the building-a-house / growing-the-food analogy you conveniently forgot to mention, and it is the fact that even as those endeavours take time and skill just like building software, you cannot distribute the results to everybody intrested at null cost!
When a house is built or a pumpkin is grown, it is a single non-copyable result for just small number of persons to enjoy!
There are different laws of economy in action in these cases.

Re: Hackathons ...good or bad? 2 sociologists came to a conclusion and it ain't good.
 

I'd compare abandoned software projects to a little plant called Selaginella lepidophylla, known by so many different common names I'm just using the scientific name. It can survive without water for a very, very long time and curls up into a ball (like a tumbleweed, in fact I think it actually is one), and when it gets some water, it uncurls again to continue growing. However, without water, it does eventually die. It can still uncurl and recurl when dead, but it is no phoenix.
Software projects are very similar in that once they're abandoned, for a certain amount of time they're just waiting to get worked on once more. Wait too long, though, and they're gone, never to return, no matter how hard you might try to revive them. Did they really deserve to die? Like the plant, they held out for as long as they possibly could, it just didn't rain in time.

The problem with saying 'anyone can continue the projects' is that 'anyone' is used in a sense that is really as far as it could possibly be from its actual meaning. The only people who are able to continue those projects are the ones who have a great amount of expertise in the field, who have the time to work on them and who have such a thorough interest in the project they're willing to put in a lot of work to remove all the accumulated cruft and dust. All three conditions must be fulfilled simultaneously, otherwise it won't work. Anyone, as such, is really no one in particular.
See it as a community garden, where the person(s) responsible for keeping it all in good shape for any reason cease(s) work on the garden. In a year, there will be only untouched nature. Volunteers with the best intentions and lots of spare time may express their grief over the loss of the nice garden as much as they want, and they may even try their best to keep everything alive and pretty, but without the experts to guide their efforts, nothing fundamentally changes and they only delay the inevitable decay and death. But the experts? They already have their own garden to take care of...

Re: Hackathons ...good or bad? 2 sociologists came to a conclusion and it ain't good.
 

I was away for a few hours and whils away, I was thinking about the best possible reply to this thread, only to come back and find yours, nthn. No matter how hard tried, I could not possibly say it better.

Re: Hackathons ...good or bad? 2 sociologists came to a conclusion and it ain't good.
 

@tortoisedoc, It has been 2 days now and I am still waiting.
Can you tell me what are your applications that you wish me to pay for?

Re: Hackathons ...good or bad? 2 sociologists came to a conclusion and it ain't good.
 

Mmmmm... Perhaps looking at his sig might be a good start? ;)

Re: Hackathons ...good or bad? 2 sociologists came to a conclusion and it ain't good.
 

Yes, but as it happens I don't use BWizz, LINKer or QuickBar, hence I am curious on what of his applications am I using?

Re: Hackathons ...good or bad? 2 sociologists came to a conclusion and it ain't good.
 

Well, I don't know, I just followed one of those and from there, a single click led me here: https://openrepos.net/user/171/programs.