[softwaredoug]

- how recent was the last commit?

- what is the license? (Avoiding copyleft headaches)

- do the issues look cared for?

- is there an issue asking “is the project maintained any longer?”

- what business or person is behind the project? What is their motive for creating the project?

- how much of an impact would it be if the project disappeared tomorrow? Could I maintain a fork or rebuild it? Is it core business functionality or a side thing?

- do others at my company use it? Or do they have a different library/etc for solving the problem?

[Jugurtha]

The above plus who is maintaining the code ? Did they put an intern to manage issues and do they understand the issues ? Are pull requests quickly accepted or refuse ?

For example, there's a library we rely on for our product where they put an intern in charge of issues and take 5 months to accept pull requests or fix the bug. This has lead us to develop plugins instead of contributing or maintaining a fork (not to deal with conflicts).

[crazypython]

> - what is the license? (Avoiding copyleft headaches)

If your app is server-side, GPL explicitly permits "private use" of GPL code without licensing anything to anyone, as long as you keep it private on your server.