It's all about knowing how to build an open source community
This. Engineering excellence is secondary. You can get away with complete craptitude in your tech if you can build community. (I won't name examples.) Of course, it's better if you also have technical excellence. On the other hand, you can have technical excellence, but it will come to naught if you have community destroying anti-patterns.
This. Engineering excellence is secondary. You can get away with complete craptitude in your tech if you can build community. (I won't name examples.) Of course, it's better if you also have technical excellence. On the other hand, you can have technical excellence, but it will come to naught if you have community destroying anti-patterns.