I did some volunteer work earlier this year, helping rejuvenate pipenv (a command-line tool that some people use to help handle Python packages they make and use). Here's what I did, how long it took, and how you can do the same.

Pipenv's maintainers had not released a new version since November 2018, and users were concerned (in many cases switching to competitors). In early March of this year, someone suggested that perhaps the official Python Packaging User Guide should stop recommending it. I saw that suggestion and went into the relevant Internet Relay Chat (IRC) channel to nudge one of pipenv's maintainers and to ask: what do you need? What's blocking you?

Dan Ryan ("techalchemy") knew what was blocking him:

techalchemy: if you're purely evaluating 'how do we release the code', yeah I might just be the main roadblock?
techalchemy: someone to yell at me to stop doing things that are not related to the goal?
techalchemy: lol
sumanah: let us assume that a successful release -- even as a pre-alpha -- is something that does not instantly break every user's life
techalchemy: yeah longer term planning though would require tech writing for sure and onboarding help, god do I struggle with that
techalchemy: have you heard me explain something...
sumanah: if you JUST want someone to yell at you to stop doing those unrelated things, just for about a month, then that can be cheaper .... would you actually _listen_ to that person?
techalchemy: historically speaking, I'd insist I was doing something important briefly but probably reassess, I do know what needs to happen
sumanah: :-) ok. So, how frequently do you need those checkins? like, 4 times a day, 5 days a week?
techalchemy: hopefully not that much, but I could see a few checkins being helpful especially if we were also onboarding some new people
sumanah: techalchemy: ~10 minutes of conversation, via IRC, 4 times a day, 5 days a week, for 3 weeks....

That would have worked out to about ten hours. We underestimated how long it would take Dan to address some nasty continuous integration bugs, so instead of three weeks it took three months. Over those months, I donated about 15 hours of my time, helping him release two betas, then a stable version in May. Given my current hourly rates, this constitutes a donation worth a few thousand dollars, which is infinitesimal compared to the value unlocked by expediting a pipenv release.

Dan needed someone to help him with prioritization, release management, and communications. So I:

• rewrote the release checklist and kept it updated
• updated GitHub issues and tweeted to keep users apprised, and to ask them for help testing the beta releases (including suggestions of specific cases to test, which I later adapted for pip)
• created draft outlines for him to fill in so he could write a status update and the beta release announcement for mailing lists/forums
• closed duplicate "is pipenv dead?" issues and updated a longer-term issue about maintainer needs, roadmap, etc.
• made a few documentation pull requests: nudged Dan and Ernest to move Pipenv docs from a nonfunctioning domain to pipenv.pypa.io, fixed a bunch of obsolete links, and edited Dan's "how to release" docs and made a pull request to move them into the repo and out of an ephemeral hackpad
• every few days, checked in with Dan via IRC or email (we also had a few videocalls) to help him stay on task

Phil Gyford noticed that initial IRC conversation and said:

It's kind of fascinating as an example of bottlenecks in open source development and the importance of project managers.

And Yoz Grahame replied:

I regularly have conversations like this, and it's a toss-up as to which of the two roles I play.

Yeah. An external perspective can help a lot. And, ideally, a project manager is a supportive accountability partner who helps with the bits you're not great at.

If you/your company depends on an open source project and you're getting annoyed or worried because the release cadence has slowed to a standstill, there's a strong chance you can turn that around. If someone on your team can spend a few hours complementing the existing maintainers and helping unblock them, that could save you a bundle compared to forking or switching dependencies. Try talking with the maintainers about what they need. And I do mean talking, as in, synchronous conversation via voice or chat, so you can build some trust and get the kind of conversation you see in the IRC log above.

Or: contact Changeset Consulting for a free initial 30-minute chat. Maybe it'll only cost you a few thousand dollars to get that bottleneck unblocked. Let's find out!