• maintenance effort and expectations: professionally maintained / casually maintained / not maintained
  • source of priorities: owner-driven / community-driven
  • desire for input: PRs welcome / issues welcome / view-only
  • license standards: bare minimum / give code back / don't be evil / be specifically good
  • how bills get paid: not users' problem / crowdfunding / selling support / we productized the hosting so if you also productize the hosting you're being a dick
for example
  • React is professionally maintained, owner-driven, PRs welcome, bare minimum, not users' problem
  • MongoDB is the same but give code back and we productized the hosting
  • SQLite is professionally maintained, owner-driven, issues welcome, bare minimum, selling support
  • anything that runs on github sponsors or patreon is crowdfunding
  • the Hippocratic License or some of the others are don't be evil
  • ACSL counts as be specifically good
  • anti-licenses are the secret fifth tier of license standards, Good Fucking Luck
  • some projects are actually community-driven but I can't think of one off the top of my head
  • most of my side projects are not maintained, owner-driven, view-only, Good Fucking Luck, and crowdfunding at the time they were written but currently not your problem.

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