Open Source Summit + Embedded Linux Conference North America 2026

When does maintaining a project become more harmful than helpful? As the leader of the OpenJS Foundation, home to Node.js and more, I will give a candid talk to unpack the hardest question in open source: how do you know when it’s time to let go? Drawing from real-world examples from leading one of the web’s most widely used open source foundations and its JavaScript projects like Lodash, jQuery, and Express, I will explore what it means to responsibly sunset a project, merge with others, or double down on maintenance. You’ll learn how to read the signs for security and sustainability, engage the community, and what it takes to wrap up a project with integrity, especially when billions of developers still rely on it.