Sorry everybody, I failed with you
Of course it&#x27;s terrible to become burnt out and it feels awful not having enough time to work on an open source project that you love.<p>But, is it just me or has it become rarer for open source project maintainers to feel free to let projects go?  I don&#x27;t mean to let them die, I mean, to find like-minded individuals to which you can defer some or all of the work?  I realize that as the original author one feels a sense of ownership, but if you want it to continue, and you don&#x27;t have the time, there is nothing wrong with putting out a call for someone to take over maintainership.<p>Most projects that I&#x27;ve maintained have been my own work but I&#x27;ve also taken over maintainership from someone on a popular project, and it was a great experience.  I got to work with a good code base, add my own ideas, offer some direction, and I learned a lot about maintaining code for longevity, integrating community contributions, and I cared about it probably more than I have for much of my own work, because I felt that I owed it to the original author to do a good job.<p>Now, several years later, I do not use it myself as much, and I am perfectly ready to find a new maintainer for it, should someone appropriate come along.  (That hasn&#x27;t happened but the project no longer takes a lot of my time. since new solutions have come along, so it&#x27;s fine.  If it did take more time, it would mean there were more users, and therefore probably there would be more interested parties in taking over maintainership.)<p>I encourage authors and maintainers who are feeling they are reaching this burnout stage to feel more comfortable putting out requests for help, it can be a good experience and even encourage community building around your work.  You don&#x27;t have to be a BDFL, you can be a temporary one.