That's a great article. I have made a similar experience, too. However, there's one thing I strongly disagree with. From the article:
> I have no qualms with walking away from projects, as I expect that if the idea is valuable, someone else will be happy to step up and take my place;
Up to here I agree. However, the article continues with:
> it's more likely that several people will step up and the strongest will survive - which is best for everyone.
To my experience, this is the #1 reason why promising projects die (by slowly converting to crap): The maintainer goes away, quietly, leaving everyone in confusion. I always thought this would happen only by accident (previous maintainer overestimates his/her free time). But I'd never have thought anybody would do this on purpose.
It is really minimal effort to drop a quick note about dropping the project and naming a successor.
Yep, look at Node.js when Ryan Dahl passed off the reins to Isaac Schlueter. The project is obviously strong as ever, and I think it probably helps that they're both at Joyent. So maybe the succession planning lesson learned here is to name a successor AND make it someone you can continue to regularly communicate with.
> I have no qualms with walking away from projects, as I expect that if the idea is valuable, someone else will be happy to step up and take my place;
Up to here I agree. However, the article continues with:
> it's more likely that several people will step up and the strongest will survive - which is best for everyone.
To my experience, this is the #1 reason why promising projects die (by slowly converting to crap): The maintainer goes away, quietly, leaving everyone in confusion. I always thought this would happen only by accident (previous maintainer overestimates his/her free time). But I'd never have thought anybody would do this on purpose.
It is really minimal effort to drop a quick note about dropping the project and naming a successor.