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After a period of reduced activity, a podling’s mailing lists have gone mostly quiet, and no recent releases have been made. Mentors reach out and find that most contributors have shifted focus to other projects or work responsibilities. The remaining community members still care about the project but aren’t sure how to regain momentum. The mentors suggest discussing retirement openly to decide the project’s future together.

Reflection questions

• How can mentors and PPMC members tell when a podling’s decline is temporary or long-term?
• What steps help a community make a transparent, respectful decision about retirement?
• How can projects preserve knowledge and history so that their work remains useful after the retirement of their creators?

Possible path forward

• Start an open discussion on the dev@ list about the podling’s status, goals, and possible next steps.
• If consensus forms around retirement, post the discussion summary and proposal to general@incubator for IPMC review and vote.
• Archive documentation, releases, and discussions so that future contributors can easily find and reuse the work.
• Frame retirement as a responsible conclusion, not a failure, it protects the ASF’s integrity and honors the volunteers’ efforts.
• If interest resurfaces later, a new proposal can always revive the project with a refreshed community.

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