> But, is it just me or has it become rarer for open source project maintainers to feel free to let projects go? I don't mean to let them die, I mean, to find like-minded individuals to which you can defer some or all of the work?
There are few projects that actually get used for longer than a couple years at most, the churn (especially in JS projects) is massive. You'll always find people to work on Big Old Stuff that's used everywhere - think Linux kernel, Qt/KDE, Gnome, Firefox, Thunderbird, libc, gcc, LLVM, jQuery, ReactJS - but the small stuff that gets disrupted ehhh replaced by some shinier newer toy? That will eventually diminish and die off, when the original author either has all their needs met, burns out or no longer needs the project.
Additionally, all of the above projects have massive financial firepower and/or other institutional backing behind them that contributes either with direct man hours or financial grants.
There are few projects that actually get used for longer than a couple years at most, the churn (especially in JS projects) is massive. You'll always find people to work on Big Old Stuff that's used everywhere - think Linux kernel, Qt/KDE, Gnome, Firefox, Thunderbird, libc, gcc, LLVM, jQuery, ReactJS - but the small stuff that gets disrupted ehhh replaced by some shinier newer toy? That will eventually diminish and die off, when the original author either has all their needs met, burns out or no longer needs the project.
Additionally, all of the above projects have massive financial firepower and/or other institutional backing behind them that contributes either with direct man hours or financial grants.