The project was dead. The previous release was 7 years ago, where it stopped because the creator (same as author of this announcement) stopped maintaining it and since the community hasn't progress beyond a BDFL-model that's where it died.
So it was dead, it just now has been resurrected (and AFAIK with a whithered community in the meantime).
Not dead, Evan was working on Acadia (elm on db) which is about to be released, to make Elm development and funding more sustentable.
your definition of dead is elms definition of stability, I think :D haha
javascriptland really warps peoples minds on stability and project-liveness