1. Challenges in Open Source
Mobile Apps
Leon Anavi
@leonanavi
leon@anavi.org

2. Agenda
 Idea
 Framework & Open Source License
 Community
 Bug Tracker
 Version Control
 Localization
 Testing
 App Stores
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3. Mobile App Lifecycle
Idea
App Store Plan & Design
Test Develop
Build & Debug
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4. Idea
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5. Idea
“Every morning in Africa, a gazelle wakes up. It knows it must
run faster than the fastest lion or it will be killed. Every morning
a lion wakes up. It knows it must outrun the slowest gazelle or
it will starve to death. It doesn’t matter whether you are a lion
or a gazelle: when the sun comes up, you’d better be
running.”
Dan Montano
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6. Mobile OS 2013
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7. New Mobile Platforms in 2013
Now is the best time to develop apps for:
 Sailfish OS
 Tizen
 Firefox OS
 BlackBerry 10
 Ubuntu
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8. Frameworks
Native Qt HTML5 Android Other
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9. Open Source Licenses
 MIT
 GNU General Public License (GPL)
 GNU “Lesser” General Public License (LGPL)
 Apache License 2.0
 Eclipse Public License (EPL)
 Other
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10. Community
Small open source project’s contributors:
 Developers
 Translators
 Testers
 Users
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11. Bug Tracker
 Publish all bugs and feature requests
 Describe in details each task in a separate issue
 Create a roadmap and follow it
 Encourage contributors to use the bug tracker
Popular free for open source bug tracking systems :
JIRA, Bugzilla, Redmine, SourceForge, GitHub,
BitBucket, Google Code
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12. Version Control
 Commit often
 Write accurate commit messages
 Tag releases
Popular open source SCM systems:
Git, Mercurial, SVN
Popular free project hosting services:
GitHub, Gitorious, SourceForge, BitBucket, Google Code
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13. Localization
Teach your app to speak foreign languages!
Advantages:
 Reach larger audience
 Increase app popularity
Disadvantages:
 Difficult maintenance
Open source web-based system for L10n management:
Zanata
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14. Testing
Meet the Users!
 Think like a user
 Get user feedback
 Listen to customer complaints
 Ask the community to test prototypes
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15. App Stores
Go to Market!
Monetization:
 Paid App
 In-app Advertizing
 In-app Purchasing
 Donations
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16. Reviews
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17. Market
… and one more thing about app downloads:
“Business is like sex. When it's good, it's very, very good;
when it's not so good, it's still good.”
George Katona
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18. Thank you!
“Above all, don’t lose hope!”
Life of Pi
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