[grogenaut]

What I really want from github is to allow people who own open source projects who don't want to own them anymore to just hand them off for escrow so that at a later date a reputable group like apache can maintain them if needed.

[onion2k]

If someone wants to give up their project and there isn't anyone in the community who wants to take over, the project is already dead. Open source doesn't work without people around to push it.

[sudhirj]

Couldn’t Apache just make a fork and announce it? Or is this just about the convenience and marketing?

[grogenaut]

If it's done this way then all of the web links stay live, and a new owner doesn't need to be found immediately. Think of it as a special permission holding pool. There are many cases of "done" libraries that need changes later. This would help with them. However when they're not done this way you can spend a few weeks / months trying to get ahold of the author and for them to decide "oh yeah I don't really care about x anymore"