Re: Linux man-pages project maintenance

["Michael Kerrisk (man7.org)" <mtk@man7.org>]

Hello Alex

On Fri, 6 Sept 2024 at 15:02, Alejandro Colomar <alx@kernel.org> wrote:
>
> Hi all,
>
> As you know, I've been maintaining the Linux man-pages project for the
> last 4 years as a voluntary.  I've been doing it in my free time, and no
> company has sponsored that work at all.  At the moment, I cannot sustain
> this work economically any more, and will temporarily and indefinitely
> stop working on this project.  If any company has interests in the
> future of the project, I'd welcome an offer to sponsor my work here; if
> so, please let me know.

Ouch! I guess first of all I just want to say thanks for all the
high-quality work that you have put into the project. It's been
tremendous!

And then: thanks for keeping the project alive! When a series of
personal events led to me more or less burning out on the project, it
would have crashed if you hadn't already arrived.

It is of course nonsense that for most of its life, the maintenance of
the project has not got some sort of funding. (For a bit more than 6
months, my work on the project was funded from a pot contributed to by
a few companies, but that money dried up in the 2008 GFC.) I hope that
someone(s) comes through on funding, but I'm not holding my breath:
most everyone agrees that documentation is a great thing (a "time
multiplier"), but it's often the last thing on which money is spent.

Cheers,

Michael


--
Michael Kerrisk, man7.org Training and Consulting
mtk@man7.org, http://man7.org/training/
"The Linux Programming Interface" -- http://man7.org/tlpi/