[Other] How to continue... the project seems unmaintained now

[torwag]

Unfortunately, this project seems to be unmaintained by now. We have close to 180 issues, more than 40 PR and many discussions,
Some people tried to reach out to @jonaswinkler, but without luck.
Well, we all hope Jonas does well, and I believe many here would be very happy to get a live signal from him, even if he just tells us that he is very busy right now.

Nevertheless, it might be a good idea to discuss how to go on, with or without Jonas. We need more people to develop, maintain, test, bug-fixing and help with feedback, user communication, etc. so that it does not become a too heavy task for a single person.

What is important, we require a team with a long term perspective. Paperless NG is a project which many rely on for archiving documents, and this is by its nature a long-term task. Thus, users wish to use paperless ng for many years to come.
What is needed, therefore, is a dedicated team which focuses on keeping paperless ng alive.

So we might start to discuss how that could be achieved.

[juahan]

Very good idea to open this discussion. I'm new in these kinds of projects, but love Paperless-ng and would definitely like to donate some time for what ever is needed. It is too good to let die.

Assuming we would get hold of Jonas, what is needed for us to get this going? What kind of organization we would need for example? What roles need to be filled?

For sure we also need a roadmap for features. What I could for example do is to go through all feature ideas/suggestions and list them.

Also, how should we organize ourselves? Some kind of Discord (or whatever) meeting to discuss?

[a17t]

Ah damn, I just created a discussion for some possible enhancements.

I see two options on how to continue:

• either we reach Jonas, although it seems like others have tried that
• we create some kind of "non single point of failure project orga" to continue

tbh. I am not to much aware of the history and whether @jonaswinkler just does not have the time to continue maintaining the project, but if thats the case, I would suggest to form a loose organisation without any single person as "single point of failure".
and of course Jonas would be welcome to join that.

What do others think.

My impression is, that there are a lot of people "loving" paperless and paperless-ng, so it could become a success story.

Btw. I just noticed a naming conflict, which could become an issue: https://www.paperless.io

[smseidl]

I would gladly become a beta tester and maybe even a slight developer for this project. With young kids I don't have lots of time, but would gladly try to help where I could. I know @jonaswinkler you are getting lots of questions on this... I'm unsure if you are answering any, but any guidance you can give will help greatly.

[shamoon]

Jonas was very vocal about taking over the stewardship of original paperless project (see the-paperless-project/paperless#711 / https://www.reddit.com/r/selfhosted/comments/k28247/paperlessng_is_here_almost/ ) and his effort at the beginning to bring this project to life was absolutely Herculean. I have also contributed significantly to this project but I worked more on the frontend. It is odd and honestly a little concerning that we havent heard from him but everyone has their reasons. I do hope all is well.

There is nothing stopping you from forking this repo, and yes as suggested it could be housed under a GitHub "organization" and more than one user given admin access in case others fizzle out. The biggest issues with that are:

1. I think most projects of sufficient complexity need at least one (or more) people who deeply understand the codebase, in this case Python, Angular JS and a lot more. I think its tough for a project like this to continue to succeed (especially when it comes to adding new features etc) if all the people behind it are siloed in different parts of the codebase.
2. There wont be an obvious way for visitors to see a forked repo. Unless at some point Jonas circles back and either merges in any work that had been done or archives this project and adds a note pointing to the new fork (like was done with OG paperless). So in some ways you'd still be depending on him.

But again, theres nothing stopping you guys. Im not sure what the best course of action is, but part of me doubts that Jonas is willing to let all the work fade and that he will be back at some point. At least I hope so—if nothing else, I still have some big PRs pending 🙂

[a17t]

@shamoon thanks for your thoughts. I agree, it's concerning when someone who was that involved with a project suddenly disappears.
The point of discussing the future of the project openly at this place is to recognize the huge amount of work jonas did as a maintainer if the repo.

Of course we can just fork and go ahead, but that's not necessarily fair Play.

[pkoerner81929]

I am happy to join the discussion as I would like to support the project as well for various additional aspects (doc, test, tickets, social etc.).

[torwag]

Jonas was very vocal about taking over the stewardship of original paperless project (see the-paperless-project/paperless#711 / https://www.reddit.com/r/selfhosted/comments/k28247/paperlessng_is_here_almost/ ) and his effort at the beginning to bring this project to life was absolutely Herculean. I have also contributed significantly to this project but I worked more on the frontend. It is odd and honestly a little concerning that we havent heard from him but everyone has their reasons. I do hope all is well.

I tried once more to reach out on him.... on other channels then github. Lets hope that works.

There is nothing stopping you from forking this repo, and yes as suggested it could be housed under a GitHub "organization" and more than one user given admin access in case others fizzle out. The biggest issues with that are:

1. I think most projects of sufficient complexity need at least one (or more) people who deeply understand the codebase, in this case Python, Angular JS and a lot more. I think its tough for a project like this to continue to succeed (especially when it comes to adding new features etc) if all the people behind it are siloed in different parts of the codebase.

2. There wont be an obvious way for visitors to see a forked repo. Unless at some point Jonas circles back and either merges in any work that had been done or archives this project and adds a note pointing to the new fork (like was done with OG paperless). So in some ways you'd still be depending on him.

I think these are valid points. I am not a full-time developer, but an academic. Furthermore, I tried to get through the code-base, but that is more complex as it might look like. A group of new maintainers would have first the challenge to get through the entire code base and get familiar with it. In code, documentation is there, not always verbose but there. I hope this is enough to get started.
As for a potential team of maintainers, it might be important to get some which are familar with the key-core technologies. After all, paperless-ng is something which can be exposed to the outside and which can fail in very unfortunate ways if things get wrong. Users might lose data which is essential for them. A more conservative approach regarding new features and future development vs. stability might be needed.

[smseidl]

As for a potential team of maintainers, it might be important to get some which are familar with the key-core technologies. After all, paperless-ng is something which can be exposed to the outside and which can fail in very unfortunate ways if things get wrong. Users might lose data which is essential for them. A more conservative approach regarding new features and future development vs. stability might be needed.

My hope would be that we could maybe keep Jonas engaged in the new team of maintainers or have him spend some time doing a Knowledge Transfer to that team.

[a17t]

I tried once more to reach out on him.... on other channels then github. Lets hope that works.

Thank you!

As for a potential team of maintainers, it might be important to get some which are familar with the key-core technologies. After all, paperless-ng is something which can be exposed to the outside and which can fail in very unfortunate ways if things get wrong. Users might lose data which is essential for them. A more conservative approach regarding new features and future development vs. stability might be needed.

My hope would be that we could maybe keep Jonas engaged in the new team of maintainers or have him spend some time doing a Knowledge Transfer to that team.

I agree, that would be the best case.

Question from my side, as some people already expressed their interest on that topic, how do we want to continue?

We can discuss here on github, on how to proceed. I currently see two main areas of interest:

• Get Jonas opinion, involve him if he wants
• Decide on how to continue? How to structure?

[apeltzer]

Regarding Jonas, I really hope for the best.

Regarding the second point:

Usually the best way of doing such an endevaour is to build a community as a Github organization instead of having a single developer account hosting the entire code base. (e.g. github.com/paperless-ng/paperless-ng).

I'm part of several (bioinformatics) communities and can share some insights on how to set things up in a proper way to ensure that this works. Its usually a good idea to have teams in the github organization then, e.g. with a list of people being able to merge PRs to development / main branches and keep those protected and steering a bit what is prioritized (maintenance vs new features?).

Would also be good to get things rolling that way, as people contributing get feedback on their PR more quickly if a list of people can review and not all relies on a single person - no offense against Jonas who really did a massive job there, but its just too much for one person who likely has a personal life too ;-)

[a17t]

@apeltzer Something like that is what I had in mind. The issue I see currently is, that the people interested connect, before we create such an organization

[bauerj]

Jonas was very vocal about taking over the stewardship of original paperless project (see the-paperless-project/paperless#711 / https://www.reddit.com/r/selfhosted/comments/k28247/paperlessng_is_here_almost/ ) and his effort at the beginning to bring this project to life was absolutely Herculean.

I couldn't agree more.

It's interesting how this discussion is going very similar to the-paperless-project/paperless#470.

A lot of people there had ideas how to help but it only gained traction when Jonas revamped the entire code-base and people moved over because the new version was simply better.

I hope that Jonas is well and simply has other things to do. Losing the main maintainer (the bus factor) is not uncommon for open-source projects but there's no simple solution to it. To quote @jonaswinkler (from the Reddit post linked above):

How do you account for the possibility that this project could also go stale in the future and eventually stop working?

That's an issue any unfunded open source project is facing.

So is monetisation a possible solution? I don't know, this project is probably too niche to sustain a salary.

[apeltzer]

So is monetisation a possible solution? I don't know, this project is probably too niche to sustain a salary.

Quite likely not possible. That would also require something like support etc pp which is hard to handle for a single developer who would have to charge quite a bit for a licence in order to get this going.

Making this a community effort ideally would be the best way forward - not having to rely on a single person anymore, who could drop out anytime and sharing "responsibilities" amongst a group of people who hold the keys to the castle.

[gador]

I am currently using paperless-ng as well and would love for the project to continue.
I have some python, docker and packaging experience and am willing to help any way possible.

[freaky33]

Was someone able to reach Jonas? Maybe we could try to reach him through is employer which you can find in his xing profile. But this would be a kind of last resort.