I posted a graph on LinkedIn. It showed that of the 10 million open source projects tracked by ecosyste.ms, more than half haven’t been updated in two years. I didn’t suggest old was bad or good, but I got a number of replies about most of this software is “done” so it’s fine. We don’t have any evidence either way, I’m unwilling to make any claims about the numbers (yet, I’m working on it). This got me wondering what it would mean for software to be “done”. Which then led to the question is anything ever done? It’s a lot harder to figure this out than I had expected.
Easy: Most software is done when nobody uses it any more.
If the code you wrote 10 years ago still isn’t quite done yet, you should celebrate. If someone still cares enough to consider it broken, or can think of improvements, it means that it is useful. In contrast to: finished and done with.
Is it still done if a collector or preservationist picks it up some years later?