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Shah asked:

I am the maintainer of a project which has a large non-technical userbase. I've been maintaining it for about four years now and adding new features as they've been requested.

I'd like to move on to other projects and stop developing for this application. Because of the non-technical nature of the users, there have been very few code contributions in the past. I don't believe I will be able to find anyone else to take over the project in my stead.

Bugs, issues, feature requests—these are still coming in. I am still responding to e-mails for help, as I am not sure if I should ignore them, tell them that I'm not working on the application, or if I should respond to e-mails in only certain cases.

What is the best way to 'abandon' this project, but still let people use the application?

See the original question here.

Make some money

Ozz answers (22 votes):

I'm guessing this is not a project you have undertaken for an employer, or for income, but something you do unpaid in your spare time.

If you are making no money on this project, then there is probably little incentive for you and no incentive for anyone else to come in fresh to deal with it. (Unless it's for a charity or similar volunteer organization, in which case you have a whole new set of problems and should probably ask another question.)

As an alternative to shutting down your project completely, why not look at the possibility of adding paid features. You may be surprised to find that your users are willing to pay, especially when the alternative is getting shut down. Of course, asking users to pay may cause many to abandon your app, but that's hardly a terrible problem when you're actively considering shutting down the project in the first place.

Another option could be to use the project as a sandbox to teach yourself new technologies. Is it a website? Upgrade to something people are talking about. Convert from Asp.Net to MVC4 for example, build a mobile version, make it service based and create an iOS app front-end for it.

Just a few ideas. You've got a good problem to have.

Related: "How to tell a client I no longer want to work on his project?"

Go out gracefully

Bill Leeper answers (3 vote):

You have a couple of options as other have noted. My option is to put out an end of life notice. Indicate that the product will be shutting down on such and such a date.

Additionally indicate that since this product is nearing end of life, only critical bugs that impact the ability of the application to function as designed or intended will be addressed, i.e. if the server is down you will get it up and running again.

If users have data, you may have to add a way for them to export it.

Take a look at what Google recently did with Reader for guidance. They shut it down and it was a very popular service, but it didn't fit their long term goals so the tough decision to shut it down needed to be made.

Vorac comments: A similar, excellent project that was discontinued: picoos.sourceforge.net

Heir to the throne

Residuum answers (11 votes):

Announce your abandoning of the product to your community of users. Maybe you will find a successor for your role as maintainer. Try to organize some type of handover, as you would with a project in your day job.

As esr put it in The Cathedral And The Bazaar:

When you lose interest in a program, your last duty to it is to hand it off to a competent successor.

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