So far I have tested Nextcloud for a year, I found it very useful and appreciate its aim on protecting user privacy.
Nextcloud is feature rich, many apps to choose from. However, that is also the source of problem, the maintainence of individual apps is a bit messy…I know these programmers are doing hard but what if an app is used by just a smaller group of people and the user base is not enough to get attention? How a specific app can still be maintained in the future? If thr app is really necessary to some, can the users hire a programmer to have it maintained?
Whenever there is a new release I see some apps will soon become incompatible and wonder if someone will do the job for us. From a user point of view, we only want to use the same function continuously, maybe for many years. Is there any mechanism to protect the “minority” ? Thanks.
hi @Laurence_Lee most of the apps are open source and available on Github so you definitely in position to continue the development yourself or hire a dev. If you require specific app this is also possible and often welcome if you support the initial developer by funding his efforts. Depending on the situation volunteer developers might loose interest in the app but you can get in touch and take over the app if you have a motivation and resources to do so.
@wwe Thank you for your quick reply. Do you mean a project that has stopped development will be available to hand over to anyone interested in? Without the consent of the project owner/initiator? How can we take over the project when it is necessary? Sorry I am unfamiliar with the mechanism.
Generally I would not expect devs would reject handing over a project they don’t care anymore… I would definitely ask the maintainer of the repo first - once they don’t react you can either fork or look for other ways. “Friendly takeover” is not easy AFAIK there was Talk about the process during last Conference https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uXBNH99ttcw and “unfriendly” takeover should be impossible at all if everything works right.