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Why Do You Participate in Open Source?

By Glenn Engstrand - Sep. 09, 2009

I am in the planning stages for an open source project that is a really cool idea and I believe a lot of people will be interested in it.

I'd like to do this thing right the first time and I believe that it is critical that the community for this project be a viable one. So, I want to know what characteristics of open source projects do you like and what do you hate?

Obviously, the software has to do something that you are interested in. What other factors are important to you? Does licensing (GPL, LGPL, Apache, BSD) play a big part in your decision? How about documentation, architecture, or ease of installation?

http://www.dynamicalsoftware.com/developer/community/fostering/participation


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  1. By Richard Carmody on Sep. 10, 2009

    Glenn - congratulations! That is excellent and I'm glad you are doing this.


    To answer your questions:

    1) Usage:

    - This has to be a need we have, or something so cool, we have to try!

    - The easier it is to try out, the better off we will be, and the lower the hurdles. If we can install via rpm or install.exe - great! Of course, we can always run a makefile, but the easier it is to get up and running, the better

    - Virtual images would be awesome!


    2) Contribution:

    - If this solves a pressing need, people will (including myself) help plug in holes

    - I don't think (and not insinuating that you do either) people will begin to contribute on day 1, so to speak. Work on doing what you already are - scratch an itch and people will probably have the same, and will want to help.


    Hope this helps.


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  2. By James DSouza on Sep. 10, 2009

    I read the linked post. I have done WP themes and Drupal themes, but they have been for work. Having access to other sample themes was critical for me to learn and then build my own and re-contribute those.


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  3. By Glenn Engstrand on Sep. 12, 2009

    That's some great feedback. Thanks for your help. What I'm hearing you say is this.


    Do something worthy. Make it easy to get involved, both from a user and a developer perspective. And provides lots of good example code.


    Anything else?


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