

Ask HN: How should one properly initiate an Open Source project? - philippnagel

Hi,<p>I have an idea for a potentially interesting and useful project.<p>My experience in the area of open source software is limited. Therefor I am thankful for any tips, resources etc.<p>Regards,
Phil
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duncan_bayne
Release early for feedback (both on the code, and the concept). Try to make
the (technical, social) culture explicit from the outset. Don't be afraid to
pivot. Seek advice on technical issues - if there aren't any early
contributors, try resources like
[http://codereview.stackexchange.com/](http://codereview.stackexchange.com/).

This is Linus' announcement of Linux:

[http://twovoyagers.com/blinkynet.net/comp/linux002.html](http://twovoyagers.com/blinkynet.net/comp/linux002.html)

"I've enjouyed doing it, and somebody might enjoy looking at it and even
modifying it for their own needs. It is still small enough to understand, use
and modify, and I'm looking forward to any comments you might have."

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marcosscriven
One rather dull, but important, aspect to think about early on is licensing.
More permissive licenses seem to be preferred today, especially if you want
submissions from corporate entities. Related to that is keeping some kind of
contributors record (the important point being you at least have a valid email
for every person that submitted something).

~~~
duncan_bayne
If you use an over-permissive license, you run the risk of a company like
Apple growing to a multi-billion-dollar enterprise off the back of your hard
work, then migrating in a proprietary direction once rich.

Whether that's a problem or not is up to you and your sense of fairness :)

My preference is the LGPL, for reasons I explain in the boilerplate README for
my FOSS work:

=====

The GPL is specifically designed to reduce the usefulness of GPL-licensed code
to closed-source, proprietary software. The BSD license (and similar) don't
mandate code-sharing if the BSD-licensed code is modified by licensees. The
LGPL achieves the best of both worlds: an LGPL-licensed library can be
incorporated within closed-source proprietary code, and yet those using an
LGPL-licensed library are required to release source code to that library if
they change it.

=====

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SEJeff
Write a proof of concept and toss it on github. If you think it will attract a
lot of people, create a mailing list via something like google groups. Send
info to tech websites and blog about it. That is how everyone else does it.

Disclaimer: I'm a comaintainer of 2 large open source projects:
[https://github.com/saltstack/salt](https://github.com/saltstack/salt)
[https://github.com/graphite-project](https://github.com/graphite-project)

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mindcrime
I wrote up a blog post a couple of months ago, full of pointers to useful
resources for getting started with Open Source. Instead of repeating what I
said there, I'll just share the link:

[http://fogbeam.blogspot.com/2014/08/starting-points-for-
lear...](http://fogbeam.blogspot.com/2014/08/starting-points-for-learning-
about-open.html)

I think you'll find (some|a lot|all) of that stuff useful.

