Unmaintained Addon Docs

maintainersguide/AEC.md

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+
+# Addon Ecosystem Coordinator
+
+## Unmaintained Addons
+
+To keep the addon ecosystem in a healthy state, it is vital to handle addons that haven't been maintained in a while.
+
+### Intent of Continuation
+
+Generally this involves attempting to contact the author to ask them if they intent to continue maintenance.
+
+Depending on the available contact information this may be done via Email, Discord, GitHub, ..
+
+If the author hasn't responded after a certain period, action might be taken to keep up maintenance.
+
+While waiting on a response to an IoC notice, maintenance steps might already be prepared depending on the likelihood of the author responding.
+
+### Maintenance Steps
+
+There are different followup steps that may be taken depending on the addons state.
+
+Addons that for example rely on services that don't exist anymore are candidate for direct removal as they are effectively non-functional.
+
+Long unmaintained addons that are usually mostly unusable in current versions may be kept for [Safe Keeping](#Safe-Keeping) or be removed.
+
+Unmaintained addons that don't fit the previous descriptions are usually [Adopted](#Adoption).
+
+### Safe Keeping
+
+Addons that once have been functional but are no longer kept up and become incompatible with current versions may be forked for safe keeping.
+
+The addon repository will be forked and possibly given a light cleanup but no support for code changes will be guaranteed.
+
+The repository will effectively act as an archive that ensures it stays as it is.
+
+### Adoption Addons
+
+When adopting an addon, it's repository is forked and given a light cleanup at first.
+
+Depending on the state and widespread usage of the addon, it may be kept mostly as is.
+
+At this point addons usually also receive updates to fixup their licensing, manifest and structure.
+
+Afterwards we look for community members that are qualified and willing to take over maintainership.
+
+### Resurrected Authors
+
+Addon authors that had been unresponsive to IoC requests and their addons have been adopted are free to come back and continue working on them again.