1) I not maintain icecream https://github.com/icecc/icecream/ I didn't start it, I took it over because the other maintainers moved on and I badgered them enough with about a couple patches that they made me maintainer. (theoretically they still are maintainers, but I don't think they even look at it any more)
2,3) People mostly have known about this project. There are a lot of old blog posts. One advantage of a project being 10 years old is people may not have used it, but they have heard of
it so when they (or someone they know) need it we come to mind.
4) Unfair? that depends. There are a lot of open source projects that are useful to exactly one person. If this is your project it is unfair to waste every bodies time marketing something they will not need. If you cannot honestly say the project is useful to someone else the time spent on marketing is a waste. In particular a lot of projects are started despite an existing project doing similar things (often as a fork), it is a lot of work to give the new project something that is compellingly better for more than just you.
On that note, I'll note that icecream and distcc do similar things. I have spoken to the maintainers of distcc and we agree with the principal that the features of icecream should be ported into distcc and then icecream killed. However since we forked distcc has got their own versions of our features. There are specific cases where only one way works, while the next the other way is the only one that works. As such I don't think we will ever port back despite a desire to do so.
2,3) People mostly have known about this project. There are a lot of old blog posts. One advantage of a project being 10 years old is people may not have used it, but they have heard of it so when they (or someone they know) need it we come to mind.
4) Unfair? that depends. There are a lot of open source projects that are useful to exactly one person. If this is your project it is unfair to waste every bodies time marketing something they will not need. If you cannot honestly say the project is useful to someone else the time spent on marketing is a waste. In particular a lot of projects are started despite an existing project doing similar things (often as a fork), it is a lot of work to give the new project something that is compellingly better for more than just you.
On that note, I'll note that icecream and distcc do similar things. I have spoken to the maintainers of distcc and we agree with the principal that the features of icecream should be ported into distcc and then icecream killed. However since we forked distcc has got their own versions of our features. There are specific cases where only one way works, while the next the other way is the only one that works. As such I don't think we will ever port back despite a desire to do so.