Ask HN: Supporting a volunteered software project post-delivery

[KiwiCoder]

I'm thinking about the challenges of a programmer volunteering to help a charity.

One of the hard things is the question of support and maintenance after the volunteer delivers the project.

Volunteers aren't going to want to be tied to a project forever, though I expect many will be happy to give some support.

Charities on the other hand won't always have the resources to pay for third party support.

My question is, what are some potentially viable ways to either avoid this problem in the first place or to provide an adequate level of support once the volunteer moves on.

All I can think of is ...

1. Handover to an internal team, assuming one exists 2. Limited support post delivery, which cramps the project in the first place 3. Just accepting that support is expensive, which also cramps the project. 4. Hoping that other volunteers will step in as needed, which won't always work for some kinds of support like urgent bug fixes 5. An agreement that all deliverables must be open-sourced, thus increasing the number of people who could potentially help out in a pinch

What else?

[marquis]

Make a really clear plan, show them how many hours it took to build it and explain what kind of support you could offer. If a web presence is important to them, the charity should be able to budget in support hours after delivery. I usually volunteer a fixed number of hours after delivery, limited to a period of time. It helps them understand what your time is worth and that communicating ahead of time is what solves all (most) issues.

If you're not able to commit to support, use WordPress or another very common framework so someone else can pick it up and don't skimp on the comments/documentation.

[KiwiCoder]

Ultimately I suspect the up-front cost of any non-trivial software project may be the tip of the iceberg. Yes, it's still a saving, but the risk (to the charity) is that they unwittingly take on a maintenance burden they would not have wanted with the benefit of hindsight.

Sounds like the only viable answer is to have a grown-up conversation with the charity, just to make sure they go into this kind of arrangement with their eyes wide open.

(Sorry, talking to myself, thinking out loud)