[Question] Is this project still being actively maintained?

[alshdavid]

I see there are no changes in 7 months and 38 open pull request - is this project still being actively maintained?

[ariasuni]

More info:

• @ogham gave me a lot of rights on this project, though our agreement was still that it was his project (at the time), but it seems he’s less available than ever (but so am I)
• I’m more or less in burnout and also have physical health issues, [one hundred other things in my life] and I couldn’t find enough focus to properly review some of the big, older PRs
• The best way to help is maybe for people to review some of these big PRs, especially the Windows one since I don’t know anything about Windows dev (I could merge PRs that have enough serious reviews)
• I still want to take care of this project, but I don’t know when I’ll have time again (hopefully soon, but well…)

Edit: also, as some have maybe seen, I still worked hard to triage issues even when I couldn’t work on code reviews.

[jnordwick]

i could her with some of the prs. im generally in favor of rewriting old unix utils to be more power and better to use, but i refuse to support snap in any way. so im a little torn.

[polarathene]

I think there are some rust organizations on Github where exa could perhaps be migrated to given the limited availability of maintainers here to review and merge? That should allow for trusted maintainers to keep the project healthy?

The last release was April 2021 v0.10.1 and that remains the version in Cargo.toml, at first I thought Github releases just weren't being made anymore (likewise for the cargo install exa crate).

Any bug reports since that reference git builds may also need to take into account when the report was made as the amount of changes continue to pile up. A release is probably worthwhile pursuing, but if current maintainers of the project aren't likely to be available to do that (for understandable reasons, no pressure), it's not good for the projects health? (I noticed the Oct 2022 issue requesting a new release was closed recently to link back to here)

• There is this org, but it's difficult to see at a glance if that's relevant anymore.
• There's quite a few popular rust CLI projects actively maintained by sharkdp. Might be an option, but I could understand if that is less appealing than a proper community org.
• I'm not sure if the Rust CLI WG org would adopt the project, but at a glance it looks like it might be appropriate?
• Could additionally reach out to communities like r/rust?

[hernangonzalez]

I think @polarathene has a sensitive suggestion here. Even very small PRs have been hanging for a while, and would be sad to see people moving away cause of maintenance.

[InCogNiTo124]

There is this org, but it's difficult to see at a glance if that's relevant anymore.

Regarding this, I deep dived a bit so I'll live a couple of my cents here: @rust-unofficial states that the project should have an active maintainer before joining the organization, something this project does not seem to be having. But, I can see it being relevant.

nevertheless great suggestions @polarathene. I think the best course of action is contacting r/rust or other communities for a possible replacement maintainer, and if someone decides they're willing to either contact rust-unofficial or create a new organization for exa. In the meantime, a great addition would be a list of PR's that are ready to be merged.

[syphar]

@ogham @ariasuni

I would love to help maintaining this project. I'm actively using exa, and would really like to see some of the improvements get released.

If not possible / wanted I would alternatively create a fork, and start merging open PRs from this into it.

[rollingmoai]

• The best way to help is maybe for people to review some of these big PRs, especially the Windows one since I don’t know anything about Windows dev

Alternatively, you can check out https://github.com/lsd-rs/lsd. It's quite active and supports Windows a long time ago. Works great for me 🙂

[wyot1]

Nothing comes close to exa. It's more than just a 'look at me I got colors' toy. But health comes first. I wish you well!

[cafkafk]

I would love to help maintaining this project. I'm actively using exa, and would really like to see some of the improvements get released.

If not possible / wanted I would alternatively create a fork, and start merging open PRs from this into it.

It would probably be wise to get someone with the ability to merge PRs that is actually active on the project, maybe @syphar should consider a deadline for a reply until you just fork it, it's a shame to see all these wasted contributions piling up.

Right now I'd love to try and help by reviewing some PRs, but it is unclear if that would even matter, given it doesn't seem there's anyone to merge them that's active.

[sbatial]

@syphar Should there be any development regarding the fork: I can try and help with reviews as well. I should have some more spare time in the next few months so feel free to ping me.

General thought:
I'm not sure if I'm missing something but a fork should not go against @ariasuni stated desire to be able to maintain again.
As far as I understand if that is the case the fork can just be merged into the original if a maintainer is willing to do so.?

And to @ogham and @ariasuni: Thanks for the project.
But health is more important. Take care.

[syphar]

@syphar Should there be any development regarding the fork: I can try and help with reviews as well. I should have some more spare time in the next few months so feel free to ping me.

@sbatial this sounds awesome!
For now I just created the repository, merged the one PR that I wanted (relative time-style, #1061 ), and reduced the documentation / automations for installation procedures.

Then I got sidetracked by needed work on docs.rs itself so I couldn't invest more time into it around the open PRs. Any help is appreciated.

General thought:
I'm not sure if I'm missing something but a fork should not go against @ariasuni stated desire to be able to maintain again.
As far as I understand if that is the case the fork can just be merged into the original if a maintainer is willing to do so.?

yep, merging back should totally be possible.