It’s demographics. Linux contributors & maintainers skew heavily to the older end of the spectrum (and, although not relevant to this point, also skew heavily male).
People who can contribute time to a project for free tend to be older because they are financially and career settled by the time they hit 50s. Raising a family tends not to leave a lot of spare time.
Contributing and/or maintaining a FOSS project < not getting murdered by my wife for “playing on my computer instead of spending time with my family.”
It could be some of the most mission-critical work imaginable, but she’d still see it as goofing around because I’m not getting paid, and she requires attention. And I love the hell out of my wife, so happy wife indeed equals happy life.
That also happens. I’m honestly surprised they lasted that long, doing any OS work on Apple hardware sucks. You have a small user base and an even smaller contributor base, poor documentation, and zero support from the manufacturer. It’s the perfect storm of headwinds.
Is it the new cool thing for Linux maintainers to step down?
Third time I’ve seen it recently…
It’s demographics. Linux contributors & maintainers skew heavily to the older end of the spectrum (and, although not relevant to this point, also skew heavily male).
People who can contribute time to a project for free tend to be older because they are financially and career settled by the time they hit 50s. Raising a family tends not to leave a lot of spare time.
Bingo.
Contributing and/or maintaining a FOSS project < not getting murdered by my wife for “playing on my computer instead of spending time with my family.”
It could be some of the most mission-critical work imaginable, but she’d still see it as goofing around because I’m not getting paid, and she requires attention. And I love the hell out of my wife, so happy wife indeed equals happy life.
Make linux your wife and then everyone will be happy.
Except OP.
Yeah but the issue with the guy leading Asahi Linux, which is probably the other one mentioned, has nothing to do with him being old.
That also happens. I’m honestly surprised they lasted that long, doing any OS work on Apple hardware sucks. You have a small user base and an even smaller contributor base, poor documentation, and zero support from the manufacturer. It’s the perfect storm of headwinds.