geomon's Journal: When Does It Make Sense To Quit?

"When I first started looking into emulators, I had a Mac-oriented software package that I wanted to run in a Linux-x86 environment. Fortunately, there was Executor, a 680x0 emulator that ran the software I needed well enough to encourage me to purchase a copy. That was seven years ago and the current version of the software is not any different than the one I purchased in 1997. I've visited the company webpage several times over the years, but until just recently there hasn't been much information. Now the site has a rather dismal story of a company that appears to be slowly disintegrating. The small business has one employee left, the founder of the company, and he admits that progress on any future work will be slow (how much slower than 7+ years between major releases can you get?). The question I have for software developers is: "When do you just call it 'quits' and move on?" I know this particular case isn't like an open-source project where someone can just fork off your tree and keep the updates rolling along. How do you say 'good-bye' in a closed source world and what happens to your life's work?"