Ask HN: What would happen to your project if you unexpectedly died?

5 points by rooster8 12y ago ↗ HN

I work on an iOS app by myself, and it's been picking up some traction.

I'm the only person who has the source code, and I have the only copy of the key needed to publish to the App Store. I encrypt my hard drives. It occurs to me that if anything ever happened to me, simple updates to keep it working with new OS versions would be impossible.

I'd like to form a contingency plan to ensure my users could at least get updates for new OS's and my family could continue to get the revenue. However, I don't have any close friends who do iOS development, and I'm not sure whom to trust with my code and keys.

Has anyone else ever had to solve this type of problem?

3 comments

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a3n 12y ago ↗

Technical executor will probably become a thing in the coming years.

If you want your family to get the revenue after you pass, then it would take a very rare and altruistic outsider to keep that going for little to no return.

Bring someone in your family into your project. Teach them. They don't have to start on code, they could help you with administration of your app store account, or documentation. Eventually they should learn how to code, or at least to maintain your app. But they should learn where everything is and how it all fits together as soon as possible.

rooster8 12y ago ↗

I should clarify that I would expect this outsider to be compensated fairly for the maintenance work, but ideally I'm handing over the keys to the castle while the family still maintains ownership, control and excess revenue beyond maintenance costs.

Interesting idea about bringing someone in the family up on it. I could at least leave instructions about how to log in and publish.

ozh 12y ago ↗

Everything I work on is open sourced. Most projects are maintained by me only, one of them gathered a small team around me.

When I die, anyone will fork my one-man projects, and I expect my "team" project to be taken over by one of them. If not, again, anyone will be able to fork it.