About this episode

Courtney Miller discusses her research on software abandonment and its implications for the open source ecosystem.

Guest Courtney Miller Panelist Richard Littauer Show Notes In this episode of Sustain, Richard welcomes back Courtney Miller to unpack her PhD research on one of open source’s most overlooked problems: what happens when widely used software is abandoned. Courtney explains why abandonment is not always simple, or even always bad, but can create real risks for the developers and projects that depend on it. From npm package research and downstream impact to Abandabot, AI-assisted tooling, maintainer burnout, and responsible sunsetting, this conversation explores how the open source ecosystem can better understand, detect, and respond when the software we rely on stops being maintained. Press download now! [00:01:28] Courtney explains the focus of her dissertation. [00:02:34] Courtney defines abandonment. [00:03:44] Her ecosystem-wide analysis focused on the npm JavaScript ecosystem, looking specifically at widely used packages. [00:05:23] The first part of the dissertation involved interviews with maintainers who rely on abandoned packages and often lack tools or clear processes for responding. [00:06:31] Courtney describes two types of abandonment: Explicit Notice Abandonment and…

People in this episode

Host: Richard Littauer

Guest: Courtney Miller

Topics covered

• maintainer burnout
• software abandonment
• open source
• npm packages
• AI-assisted tooling
• responsible sunsetting

Keywords

• maintainer burnout
• software abandonment
• open source
• npm
• Abandabot
• AI tooling
• responsible sunsetting

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: npm

Products: Abandabot

Explore listener stats, chart rankings, contacts and more on the Sustain podcast page.