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Make it clear many OSS projects have only 1 maintainer #971

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Nov 19, 2025
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Make it clear many OSS projects have only 1 maintainer #971

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Make it clear many OSS projects have only 1 maintainer
david-a-wheeler Sep 1, 2025
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Merge branch 'main' into many_projects_1_maintainer
gkunz Nov 18, 2025
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4 changes: 2 additions & 2 deletions docs/Concise-Guide-for-Evaluating-Open-Source-Software.md
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_by the [Open Source Security Foundation (OpenSSF)](https://openssf.org) [Best Practices Working Group](https://best.openssf.org/), 2025-03-28_

As a software developer, before using open source software (OSS) dependencies or tools, identify candidates and evaluate the leading ones against your needs. To evaluate a potential OSS dependency for security and sustainability, consider these questions (all tools or services listed are merely examples):
As a software developer, before using open source software (OSS) dependencies or tools, identify candidates and evaluate the leading ones against your needs. To evaluate a potential OSS dependency for security and sustainability, consider these questions (all tools or services listed are merely examples, and don't expect excellent ):

## Initial Assessment

Expand All @@ -19,7 +19,7 @@ Unmaintained software is a risk; most software needs continuous maintenance. If
|------|-------------|:--------:|
| **Activity Level** | Confirm significant recent activity (e.g., commits) has occurred within the previous 12 months. | |
| **Communication** | Verify the existence of recent releases or announcements from the project maintainer(s). | |
| **Maintainer Diversity** | Verify the presence of more than one maintainer, ideally from different organizations, to reduce single-point-of-failure risk. | |
| **Maintainer Diversity** | Verify the presence of more than one maintainer, ideally from different organizations, to reduce single-point-of-failure risk. However, note that [many widely-used projects have one maintainer](https://opensourcesecurity.io/2025/08-oss-one-person/). | |
| **Release Recency** | Confirm that the last release was issued within the previous 12 months. | |
| **Version Stability** | Assess whether the version string indicates instability (e.g., begin with "0", include "alpha" or "beta", etc.). | |

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