About
Dead projects. Living ideas.
OSS Graveyard catalogues open-source projects that have been abandoned or have gone quiet but are still worth something to someone — and the forks, rewrites and successors that are already trying to carry them forward.
Projects and revivals
A project is the original, dormant piece of software. A revival is any effort that continues, replaces or reimplements it. A revival is not necessarily a fork: it can be an entirely separate codebase solving the same problem.
- Fork
- Continues the original codebase.
- Rewrite
- Same project, new codebase.
- Reimplementation
- Independent implementation of the same design, format or protocol.
- Successor
- Endorsed or de facto next-generation project.
- Alternative
- A different project that solves the same problem.
- Compatibility layer
- Keeps software, data or plugins built for the original working.
- Replacement
- A drop-in replacement for the original.
- Other
Status is a judgement, not a timer
We never mark a project as abandoned just because its last commit is old. Mature software can be finished; busy repositories can be dead. Repository activity is shown as evidence, and the status comes from the community.
- Abandoned
- The maintainers have explicitly stopped or clearly walked away.
- Dormant
- No meaningful activity for a long time, but not formally abandoned.
- Seeking revival
- Looking for people willing to pick it up.
- Revival in progress
- Someone is actively working on bringing it back.
- Revived
- Successfully brought back to life.
- Forked
- Development continues in a fork rather than the original.
- Revival failed
- A revival was attempted but did not stick.
Moderation
Anyone can browse. Signed-in users can submit projects and revival efforts; every submission is reviewed before it is published. “Verified” means a moderator has checked the facts.