By phayte
via grok-programming.com
Published: Aug 29 2008 / 14:48
I have been looking for a place to give back to the Java open source ecosystem for a while now. In that quest I’ve downloaded and looked over a ton of open source projects. Most of them suck when it comes to initial buy-in costs on developers who might just want to give some of their time to the project. There are a lot of us out here that would love nothing better than to help you out on your project if only trying to do so wasn’t so painful. Let’s take a look at what I’ve seen on where open source projects go wrong and start driving potential contributors away instead of attracting them.
Comments
paul_houle replied ago:
Don't forget the "sourceforge syndrome"... The open source product that's got nothing but an SVN repo and a few source releases. No attempt to write a paragraph about what the product does, no screenshots to see if the product even works (or is trying to fake it), and no documentation.
When I'm looking for an open source product to help with a project, I might need to evaluate 20-30 different packages. If I can't get some sense of the scope and status of a project in 30 seconds, I move on to the next one.
phayte replied ago:
Ah good call. I should have included those too. D'oh!
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