How to run an open source project

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    How to run an open source project - Presentation Transcript

    1. How to Run an Open Source Project by Sebastiaan Deckers
    2. Who am I?
      • Founder of Pandion instant messenger
        • XMPP client for Windows
        • Open source, soon GPL v3
        • 2-4 million users
      • Working at Directi on Chat.pw
        • Based on Pandion
        • Open source, GPL v3
        • Launching soon!
    3. Goals of this Talk
      • Starting a project
      • Useful tools
      • Mistakes to avoid
      • Division of labour
      • Gaining and handling users
      • ???
      • Profit!
    4. Getting Started
      • Choose a name
        • Remember Phoenix, Firebird, Firefox?
        • Choose something that is available, easy to remember, pronounceable over the phone, …
        • Acronyms are good, recursion better
          • eg: GNU = Gnu’s Not Unix
      • Choose a logo
        • Humans remember visually
    5. Code and Content License
      • Source Code
        • Copyleft: GPL, LGPL
        • Copyright: BSD, MIT/X11, Apache
      • Content
        • Logos, documentation, artwork, presentations, media, mailing lists, blog posts, …
        • Creative Commons Licenses
        • GNU Free Documentation License
      • Contributions
        • Transfer IP or scattered ownership
    6. Project Hosting
      • Do-It-Yourself (DIY)
        • Pro: Product demo, commercial projects
        • Con: Productivity drain, attack/spam vector
      • All-In-One
        • Pro: No hassle, integrated suite
        • Con: No flexibility, poor usability
      • Loosely Coupled Mashup
        • Pro: No hassle, specialised
        • Con: Content islands
    7. Releases and PR
      • Synchronised Releases
        • Major releases follow fixed cycle with others
        • Minor releases when needed by users
        • Nightly builds for developers and testers
      • PR 2.0
        • Wikipedia
        • Blog
        • Twitter
        • Ohloh
        • Community!
    8. Team Management Melting pot of experience and development styles Distributed location & time zone Co-developers fix bugs and improve architecture Code quality Specialist contributors, resilient manpower Easy come, easy go High motivation and passion Ad-hoc productivity Actual Strength Perceived Weakness
    9. Team Management
      • Lessons learned
        • Document everything, publically log decisions
          • Lower barriers to join the project or it gets forked
        • Decentralised decisions
          • Core leadership team
          • Listen to your users
        • Follow up, track progress, deadlines
          • Have a project manager who cracks the whip
        • If you build it, they will come
          • Don’t wait for people to join. Just go for it.
    10. User Community
      • Problem:
        • The better the product, the more users.
        • The more users, the less time spent improving the product.
      • Solutions:
        • Self Service: documentation, wiki, discussion groups, chat rooms, etc.
        • Empowerment: Expert users assist novice users.
        • Filter and rank feedback so developers can concentrate on what matters.
    11. Is there Money in Free Software?
      • Ways to monetise projects as a developer:
        • Sell related service or product
        • Advertising
        • Get better job offers
        • Consulting & paid support
        • Beg for donations
    12. Project Foundations
      • Single entity owns the project
      • Why?
        • Fixed representation of ever changing team
        • Survival assurance to users
        • Accountability
        • Legal protection
        • Hiring employees
        • Receiving income
    13. EOF Questions? Contact Me [email_address] http://twitter.com/pandion http://blog.pandion.be/ Shameless Plugs http://www.pandion.be/ http://www.directi.com/ http://start.pw/ Thank you for your time!

    + Directi Directi , 9 months ago

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