How to Run an Open Source Project

by Sebastiaan Deckers

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!

Goals of this Talk

• Starting a project• Useful tools• Mistakes to avoid• Division of labour• Gaining and handling users• ???• Profit!

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

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

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

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!

Team Management

Perceived Weakness Actual StrengthDistributed location & time zone

Melting pot of experience and development styles

Ad-hoc productivity High motivation and passion

Easy come, easy go Specialist contributors, resilient manpower

Code quality Co-developers fix bugs and improve architecture

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.

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.

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

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

EOF

Questions?

Contact Me

cbas@pandion.be

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!