"did not meet expectations" is NOT what I would consider a popular product I mean come on ...

Also, in Open Source, the main developers can leave and that WILL NOT kill the project if it's popular. This is because community members will take over. This can NOT be done with a proprietary product. Period. Case in point is PHP (I don't recommend using it but it's extremely popular). The original creator and developer of PHP dropped out of the project completely and the community took over and made it a MUCH better programming language.

>I am sure Craig can as well, but my most bemoaned was gears.
>Did not really reach expectations and is dead -
>AFAIK even some of the API's needed for it in chrome were removed, but not sure on that.
>But I still favor OS ....
>
>>Yeah, but you can't name a popular open source project that has "died". Yet if there is a corporate sponsor (like Microsoft) or a small company with proprietary code, popular products can and do die. Microsoft has no problem trying to kill things left and right because of political whim or some sort of perceived needed strategy. Can't happen in open source. Period.
>>
>>>I've seen lots of Open Source projects have promise, people jump in and help develop it, then after a couple of years, someone comes along with something better and people stop updating it. Really, there's no difference. If a product you use dies, no matter if it's OS or not, you're still stuck with a dead product. In my book, there's no difference.
>>>
>>>>So where are all the abandoned Open Source projects???? If they are popular, the community supports them. If they aren't they die a natural death because not enough people find them useful. Seems like a much better way to pick tools than relying on the whims and politics of a big corporate gorilla!!