Andrew Milton wrote:

Mihamina,

Yes, Andreew. (I quote all things you said because I see you have very good arguments and you did not reply in the list)

Even if these products no longer actually "work", they may provide a function that is useful, and may only take minor fixing from someone. Quite apart from that, they can also serve as learning tools for people getting into Zope product development.

Removing something purely because of its age, is not really a valid reason. It's doubly not a reason if it's code you're not even interested in.

I asked that because a newbie to a software, whatever it is, is looking at the activity of the project. Having products last modified at 2002 or 2003 is a bit strange for newcomers. At least should we ask the developpers to precise their "old" products are compatible with latest Zope release. That would trigger and update the last modification date. But you're all right, and I now agree with you all: deleting "old" products is a bad idea. That's the power of discussion.

Many of us still use or maintain code a lot older than that, that is perfectly usable. Some things simply don't require constant changes once they achieve life.

However, since you seem really keen to contribute, I'll outline a process that would be constructive.

1) Find code you're interested in 2) Test it

If it doesn't work

3) Fix it a) If you can't, try to find someone that can (and will). 4) Send patches to author 5) Wait.. 6) If you get no response add a the patch to your Zope area. a) Make a list of "abandoned" projects that might be useful if they can find a maintainer.

I get plenty of emails from people intersted in old code that I maintain, that I'm not necessarily using any more, and I'm ususally happy to make it 'work' again and release a new version. Or to hand over projects that someone else is really more interested in.

A lot of people are willing to help, even to fix old broken code. Just not to fix all the old broken code. I'd probably sign up to "make stuff work" for projects that would be useful if maintained, without assuming the mantle of maintainer (I maintain enough open source projects as it is).

It's OK for me! :)