[myprotegeai]

I've maintained a fairly popular open source project for over 13 years[1]. The software is basically "complete." How does funding work for someone like me? I have no initiatives with it that require funding. Occasionally, I need to fix a bizarre obscure bug, or support a new python version/feature (async/await being the last big one). But otherwise, I just field questions a few times a month.

Truth be told, I'd rather be done with the project completely. It's like a little monkey on my back that I can never be rid of, that I must always tend to. But at the same time, since I can never realistically receive funding for it, the only value I get is the fact that my name is on it. I wish a big, legit company would just buy it off of me somehow, but there's no incentive for them either. I don't know how this ends.

1. https://github.com/amoffat/sh

[andris9]

I had the exact same experience with Nodemailer, a popular open-source project I started 14 years ago. My solution was to empty the README file and set up a dedicated documentation website. Since the project is popular, the documentation website receives around 70,000 visits per month. I initially tried paid ads, but they only netted about $200 per month—not great. So, I started a commercial project somewhat related to Nodemailer and added ads for my new project on Nodemailer’s documentation page. This brings in around 3,000 visits per month to my paid project through the ads on the documentation page. Even if the conversion rate is low, it’s essentially free traffic for my paid project, which is now approaching $10,000 MRR. Without the free visitor flow from my OSS project’s documentation page, I definitely wouldn’t have made it this far.

[black_puppydog]

This is a really interesting approach, I hadn't thought of this!

Just out of curiosity, do you think the separate documentation page has better conversion than if you were to, say, include the ad directly into the readme inside the repo?

[myprotegeai]

Thanks for sharing. It's an interesting idea, to try to trampoline it into another related commercial project. I just checked my RTD analytics, I get around 1k pageviews to `/` per month. Unfortunately I don't have a related commercial product either.

[aserafini]

Very interesting! I wonder if, sadly, the rise of AI-assisted coding will chip away also at this potential revenue stream? As developers simply ask a local or cloud LLM how to use a piece a software instead of reading the documentation.

[kelnos]

You can always just stop working on it. You aren't obligated to do anything further if it doesn't bring you joy. Update the README to say you've stopped maintaining it, and to add a bit about searching for a new maintainer.

If you believe you still get an ongoing benefit (reputational or whatever) by being its maintainer and continuing to support it, and if you still want that benefit, then you have to keep up the work. Very little in life is truly free, unfortunately.

You could also see if there's a way to monetize your work on it. If people want support or need bugs fixed, they can pay you to do so, for example. Might even look into GitHub Sponsors, if you haven't already. I do get that it's harder to solicit donations for something that's "finished", though.

[account42]

> and to add a bit about searching for a new maintainer.

Don't. Unless you already know someone you can trust it's better to just let someone fork it and build reputation for their fork on their own.

[FooBarWidget]

It's always an option to just publicly announce that you will no longer maintain it anymore and that you are either looking for a successor, or encouraging the community to fork it.

[magarnicle]

BTW I love sh. It's really handy and quite clever. Thanks for making it.

[cxr]

When someone no longer enjoys the food in a restaurant, they tend to stop going. Why not do the same: just not do the thing that you wish not to do?

[account42]

Some people do feel responsible for things besides themselves. That's generally a good thing for society.