{"podcast":{"title":"Sustain","slug":"sustain-796832","podcast_index_feed_id":796832,"rss_url":"https://feeds.fireside.fm/sustain/rss","website_url":"https://podcast.sustainoss.org","image_url":"https://media24.fireside.fm/file/fireside-images-2024/podcasts/images/2/27729c65-f4a6-4496-8c86-820e7f13b285/cover.jpg?v=6","author":"SustainOSS","episode_count":292,"summary":"Sustain brings together practitioners, sustainers, funders, researchers and maintainers of the open source ecosystem. We have conversations about the health and sustainability of the open source community. We learn about the ins and outs of what ‘open source’ entails in the real world. Open source means so much more than a license; we're interested in talking about how to make sure that the culture of open source continues, grows, and ultimately, sustains itself. Newsletter","last_synced_at":"2026-07-25T02:20:58.603315+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/sustain-796832"},"episode":{"title":"Episode 289: Courtney Miller on Maintainer Burnout and Software Abandonment","slug":"episode-289-courtney-miller-on-maintainer-burnout-and-software-abandonment","published_at":"2026-06-12T14:00:00+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/sustain-796832/episode-289-courtney-miller-on-maintainer-burnout-and-software-abandonment","show_page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/sustain-796832","url":"https://podcast.sustainoss.org/289","audio_url":"https://aphid.fireside.fm/d/1437767933/27729c65-f4a6-4496-8c86-820e7f13b285/49bc29c9-e203-47f3-b4bd-0d097560e9ee.mp3","summary":"Guest Courtney Miller Panelist Richard Littauer Show Notes In this episode of Sustain, Richard welcomes back Courtney Miller to unpack her PhD research on one of open source’s most overlooked problems: what happens when widely used software is abandoned. Courtney explains why abandonment is not always simple, or even always bad, but can create real risks for the developers and projects that depend on it. From npm package research and downstream impact to Abandabot, AI-assisted tooling, maintainer burnout, and responsible sunsetting, this conversation explores how the open source ecosystem can better understand, detect, and respond when the software we rely on stops being maintained. Press download now! [00:01:28] Courtney explains the focus of her dissertation. [00:02:34] Courtney defines abandonment. [00:03:44] Her ecosystem-wide analysis focused on the npm JavaScript ecosystem, looking specifically at widely used packages. [00:05:23] The first part of the dissertation involved interviews with maintainers who rely on abandoned packages and often lack tools or clear processes for responding. [00:06:31] Courtney describes two types of abandonment: Explicit Notice Abandonment and Activity Based Abandonment. [00:09:27] Courtney explains the third and final chapter called, Designing Abandabot. [00:11:10] Richard raises the point that some software can be “done” and still function fine. Courtney agrees, noting that not all abandonment matters and beyond alerts remediation matters. [00:13:22] The conversation expands into under-resourced and under-maintained projects, which can also become supply chain risks before they are fully abandoned. [00:14:53] Richard brings up the “Whale Fall” idea and Courtney agrees and points to responsible sunsetting as an important research are…","meta_description":"Guest Courtney Miller Panelist Richard Littauer Show Notes In this episode of Sustain, Richard welcomes back Courtney Miller to unpack her PhD research on…","key_points":[],"chapters":[],"topics":[],"duration_seconds":1858,"processing_state":"not_requested","actions":[{"name":"request_transcript","method":"POST","url":"https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/sustain-796832/episodes/episode-289-courtney-miller-on-maintainer-burnout-and-software-abandonment/transcription-requests","description":"Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode."},{"name":"read_markdown","method":"GET","url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/sustain-796832/episode-289-courtney-miller-on-maintainer-burnout-and-software-abandonment.md","description":"Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource."}]}}