oliverdavies.uk/source/_daily_emails/2024-04-15.md

---
title: A note to open-source software maintainers
date: 2024-04-15
permalink: daily/2024/04/15/a-note-to-open-source-software-maintainers
tags:
  - software-development
  - drupal
  - php
  - open-source
cta: ~
snippet: |
  If you want people to use your open-source software, make it easy to use and update.
---

I recently updated a website to the latest version of Drupal.

Doing so introduced a bug in a contributed module I was using.

A fix was committed to the 2.x branch of the module, which is still in an unstable alpha phase, and the issue was closed.

There was no fix for the stable 1.x branch.

There was no fix backported to the 1.x branch.

There are breaking changes between the 1.x and 2.x branches that require me to update custom code that uses the module, which I don't want to do yet, and I don't want to update to an unstable version.

If you maintain open-source software, don't force people to update too quickly.

If you can, make it easy for people to update to the next major version by keeping breaking changes to a minimum and providing time and clear instructions for doing so.

If these are too difficult, it could discourage or prevent people from using your software.