How do you guys go about entrusting third party packages, libraries, etc. into your projects?  In other words, what steps, if any, do you take before incorporating an outside component into your project?  Does the sheer number of downloads satisfy your assurance that it is safe?  Is it considered safe if you downloaded it from github simply because it was github?  What about updates?  How can you be assured that the component will be kept up to date when you go back years from now to update your application?**If this is not the right forum to post this - please tell me which one would be appropriate.
Entrusting third party components in your projects
programming practices