Recruiting Help for Open Source Projects?

AsparagusChallenge asks: "Let's say that I do have an open source project. I've setup a CVS on SourceForge, made release announcements on freshmeat, placed a nice webpage and a message board to discuss CVS commits. That said, what's the best way to attract talented people to help with development? I'd like to hear comments from people that have started their own projects and have got more people to work with them. What are the best channels to find volunteers, how to ask for testers, forming a team and so on. Note that I'm not advertising my project; what I'm asking for are general hints."

Comments

Make some strides yourself

[HaiLHaiL]

If you really want to attract talented people to your project, do some significant work yourself upfront. Get something usable (or at least a proof of concept) working. OSS developers don't want to work on something that they can't be sure will ever come to fruition. How many projects on sourceforge are in "planning" or never come out of alpha?

Thank you everybody

[AsparagusChallenge]

>>>Make a really good product...

I expect to be doing it :)

>>>Do you know that sourceforge has a "Project Help Wanted" forum, right?

Well, that's why was I asking. I'd like to hear experiences of other people with that kind of things.

>>>Get something usable (or at least a proof of concept) working

Working code ready.

>>>Four, Usenet.

That's something I still have to try, thanks.

>>>go ahead and tell us what your project is

https://sourceforge.net/projects/elcad/
Please don't slashdot my poor homepage :)
I didn't want to appear as simply promoting, but thanks for asking.

>>>I think one of the reasons that people build open source projects is to prove themselves

I have high expectations about that project, and can't find the time for fixing autoconf, setting .deb packages correctly, building a user interface, and that's just what I've found until now. I don't think that the "lone programmer" paradigm will be enough for it.

Here's how it was for me.

[stevey]

I suspect that I got lucky because my project has the magic term 'mp3' in it's title.

What I did was to start my project, post it to Freshmeat and SourceForge and make regular releases when new functionality was added - this is necessary to make your project known to random people.

All the time I was developing I was answering emails from users who needed help installing, or tweaking things, and that got fed back into future releases.

After a few releases it was getting obvious that one or two users were being helpful above and beyound that which I'd expect from a random user. These users were sending patches, playing around with the software in interesting new ways, and asking for very specific features which would be useful to other people - but which I'd not considered at all.

These were the people that ended up getting write access to my CVS repository, and these are now "my little helpers".

All of this happened naturally, the only things I really did were to publicise the project itself in my Advogato diary, freshmeat, and online. If people want software you want to make them find yours - then you want to have something which works well enough for them to use it. If people have a hard time using/installing/understanding your project they'll give up on it very quickly. (Sometimes they'll even refuse to use it again; thinking "Oh I tried that once - it sucked")

Finally I always asked for help on my projects page - making it clear to visitors that I'd be extremely greatful to recieve code, logos, themes, documentation, and suggestions from users. 99% of people won't give you anything - but the 1% really makes a big difference.

Three suggestions I'd make to writers of any new software:

• Think of a 'plugin'/'extension' system early on. If people can add bits to your software, (even if they keep it to themselves) they'll be more likely to like it, and work on it.
• Think about integrated bug reporting, like Emacs 'M-x report-bug', or Debians 'reportbug' package - that'll save you receiving email which says "Your software doesn't work" with no details.
• Documentation, documentation, documentation.

• Finally I guess this is a good point to say thank you to all the people that spared the time to contribute to my project - your contributions are much appreciated :)

The only proven way is offering money.

[semanticgap]

Anything else is an art. In my experience best contributors range from those that come completely out of the blue to people you know professionally in person.

Generally, lack of contributors shouldn't be a concern - if it is, then the scope of your project is too big. Keep your scope narrow and goals simple (work on the assumption that you will never get any contributors other than yourself), focus on perfection rather than size or time, and your project will be successful.