VERSION 1 OF THE Project Activity Mode Vocabulary IS AT http://bayleshanks.com/pamv1
Project Activity Mode Vocabulary
version 2
The following vocabulary is proposed for defining the "activity mode" of a project:
- Active: Developer(s) are steadily adding features or cleaning up program code. Serious bugs are expected to be promptly dealt with.
- On hold: Developer(s) are not currently adding features or cleaning up program code, but they have plans for the project and intend for it to become active at some point in the future.
- Maintanence mode: Developer(s) are not currently adding features or cleaning up program code, and do not intend for this to change in the future. However, serious bugs are still expected to be promptly dealt with.
- Dead: No one is developing or maintaining the project, and no one intends to in the future.
"Dealt with" means patched, except for bugs which require substantial code rewrites, in which case "dealt with" means a public announcement, and, in the case of security-related bugs, continuous work until the bug is patched.
By default, "promptly" means 3 months, or 2 weeks for security-related bugs. Users are encouraged to "parameterize" this vocabulary by redefining this length of time.
Here's a handy table:
Activity mode | adding features or cleaning up code? | serious bugs expected to be promptly dealt with? | planning to become more active? | |
Active | Yes | Yes | N/A | |
On hold | No | ? | Yes | |
Maintanence mode | No | Yes | No | |
Dead/unmaintained/orphaned | No | No | No | |
Synonyms for 'dead':
- 'dead' connotes a suggestion that the project is no longer useful
- 'unmaintained' and 'orphaned' connote a suggestion that the project is still useful and that it would be nice if someone else would adopt it
Other qualifiers:
- Local fork: orthogonal to the rest; indicates that this repo is merely a local fork of another project, so even if this repo is dead, the parent project may be active.
Old versions of the vocab:
- had 'sporadic' which was like 'Active' but at a low frequency
- there used to be a state called 'coma' which was like 'dead' but with some chance of being revived
- (temporarily) on-hold used to be called 'asleep'