Ask HN: The Day.js Dilemma: How Should We Handle OSS Maintainers Going MIA?

As web developers, we heavily rely OSS packages. One popular example is Day.js, a JS lib for parsing, validating, manipulating, and formatting dates. It's a widely-used alternative to Moment, with over 17mil weekly downloads on npm.

A critical bug was discovered in Day.js (see: https://github.com/iamkun/dayjs/pull/2118) causing incorrect date manipulation (add, subtract) when in UTC TZ. This could have severe implications for any project relying on Day.js for date-related functionality. However, the maintainer of the project appears to be unresponsive, leaving the bug unresolved and the future of the library uncertain.

This raises some important questions for our community:

- At what point should we consider a widely-used OSS project "abandoned" if the maintainer is unresponsive?

- Is forking the project the best solution, or should we first try to reach out to the maintainer through other channels?

- Are there established community guidelines around responsiveness expectations for widely-used OSS projects?

- What are successful examples of community-driven forks or maintenance after a maintainer stepped away?

I am very aware that many of these developers give their spare time for free for these projects, with little or no payment, and I am very thankful for all their work. This developer does get some money (a small amount?) through OpenCollective, and possibly also works for a company (in China?) that makes a UI library, which I think uses Day.js internally.