Community Involvement for an Open Source Project?

pfleming asks: "Several months ago I began a maintenance fork of some niche software. Essentially, these are PHP/MySQL scripts for real estate offices. The original developer moved on to an incompatible version to what I was using. Upgrading for me and many other users was not the easiest option. Luckily the software is GPL'd and so continued work on the fork is not a big deal. I have set up a site, made it available for download, announced the availability of the fork on Freshmeat and the forums for the original software. Now I have a few people subscribed to the project on Freshmeat, and a few on a mailman list set up for the project. This project has been listed on the GNU Website and other mirror sites but doesn't get much discussion on the mailman list and nothing from the Freshmeat subscribers. There is usually an increase in interest (indicated by a short term increase in site hits) when new releases are announced but this fades back to regular traffic of ~40 visits per day as measured by webalizer after a short period of time. Is this an anomaly? Should I be thankful that there aren't tons of bug reports and feature requests?"

"More questions for you to chew on:

• Is there more interest in a new project vs. one that is more or less mature?
• Is the project too narrow to attract an audience?
• Could the underlying business (real estate) just be too saturated with web sites?

Just what are the secrets to a successful (measured by lots of contributors, etc) project...or am I just not defining success correctly?

What other thoughts does Slashdot have on this subject?"

Comments

Surprising

[The Bungi]

Essentially, these are PHP/MySQL scripts for real estate offices. [...] ~40 visits per day as measured by webalizer after a short period of time. Is this an anomaly?

No. Because they are PHP/MySQL scripts for real estate offices. Calculate number of real estate offices in the US. Substract those that have a meaningful IT infrastructure beyond a few PCs to type and print contracts. Then substract those that use custom software. Then substract those that don't use an Office/VBA solution, or simply a Microsoft platform (and from my experience those are the majority). Then substract those that have actual in-house developers. Finally, substract those that use PHP and MySQL, specifically. Then add the number of people who create and sell software solutions for real estate offices based on PHP/MySQL. There you go, about 40 people.

If you are Apache, Perl, Python, GAIM, etc, etc. then yes, it's an anomaly. What you're seeing is about right, considering it's a pretty narrow niche. People won't get excited about something just because it's listed on FreshMeat and is GPLE'd. There are one-liner bash scripts there with wider audience than your code.

But I don't see what you're worried about - that's how it works. The fact that its released will eventually help someone out. Just don't expect Yahoo-sized traffic.

Re:Surprising

[jayhawk88]

No offense intended to the author, but quite frankly, I'm shocked something like this would get 40 hits a day. I mean, this is pretty much the definition of "obscure program".

Re:Surprising

[silas_moeckel]

Have you ever been in your average Realestate office? Forget not having an IT department they generaly have one or two Computer Pro's that still think AOL is the next best thing to sliced bread but have figured out how to play sneaker net and attach things to email along with a reboot here and there. Often the recptionist is dual duty with helping with the computers and filing the weekly advertisements. This is not exactly a high tech business. MPLS listings are considered high tech and having a shared printer is cutting edge. BTW this is from persoanl expeieince with the Ravis (a moderatly large realestate company) and a lot of locals.

Re:My 2 cents

[JohnGrahamCumming]

Even if the Read Estate industry is massive (and it is), this guys market is much smaller unless he gets the word out to the general public, which involves spending lots of money on advertising...

Word of mouth is far more powerful than advertising. What the guy needs to do is get a few RE offices up and running with the software and get those RE agents to talk to others about it. In addition there are specialist RE web sites where RE agents could discuss the project and hence get more coverage of his project.

John.

The Tipping Point

[Sean80]

There's that book out there called 'The Tipping Point' which might be of some interest to you. Never read it myself, but from what I've heard about it, it tries to explain why some things go on to be phenomenonally successful (like Levis jeans) while other things fade into obscurity.

As for being thankful about not having bugs and feature requests, well I suppose it depends on your outlook. I can imagine you're the only person who can answer it you. Coding for your own sake? Then it's probably good, you can set your own direction without any monkeys on your back. If you're coding for the glory, well, perhaps a broader choice of topic might help. ;)

My experience with real estate software.

[SubjunctiveSam]

A month ago I did a whole bunch of work for a real estate agent in his home office, making hardware and software upgrades, etc. I have seen the multi-listing and real-estate specific database software that they are using, and while based on some ancient code, it was very powerful, very polished and good, and from what I gather, the software from this company is quite entrenched in the real estate business.

I installed and setup systems using Agent Office/Online Agent and for the Lightning 2000 mls service, which essentially seems to be a very fancy terminal emulator. screenshots here They have been buying software from this company for FOURTEEN YEARS. You're competing against some big guns I think. The best thing you've got going for you is that these softwares are quite expensive, due to the fact that they are niche softwares, and that there is a lot of money in real estate. If you can offer a better real-estate -specific database at a lower price, maybe you can compete, but it had better convert and import the database they already have.

Re:Simple.

[cranos]

Well, that was a blindingly generalised statement wasn't it.

I am neither hugely wealthy, nor am I some bored college student. I am work five days a week and have a wife and kids and yet I am developing my own project under the GPL.

The reasons people write Open Source software vary greatly from having an itch to scratch to altruism to sticking it to the man.

Sounds like maintenance mode.

[Kjella]

The original developer moved on to an incompatible version to what I was using. Upgrading for me and many other users was not the easiest option. (...) Should I be thankful that there aren't tons of bug reports and feature requests?"

Is it possible that the majority of your user base aren't really that interested in new features, but basicly want to keep the (well-working) system they have, just as you did? On the same note, isn't it also likely that those that are happy with the old product are also mostly the same that haven't been bitten by any major bugs?

To me, the situation seems pretty normal for a system that is in more or less "maintenance" mode. Now, the question is if that is what you want it to be, or do you want to start new development based on this platform? If it's the latter, you'd have to work rather intensely to argue for why going away from that system (to an incompatible one) was a poor decision. Many developing new features subscribe to the idea that to make an omelet, you need to break a few eggs...

Kjella

Marketing

[btakita]

Open Source, like anything other business, requires Marketing. You need to do market research, advertise your product, and most importantly, get customers.

Find out how to make money from your software. If you can't, is it a worthwhile hobby?

Finally, what is your business model? Are you going to be a consultant or sell the software or both?

If you're going to sell the software, consider moving to a different platform, like Java or .NET. PHP scripts are a hard sell. When Zend gets their act together and...

• Developes a stable (as in not breaking previous code with almost every release) platform
• Improves performance
• Makes it easier to interface your script with other applications

then PHP would be a good sell.

Either this is a lame promo

[MoThugz]

...to get more coders for this project, or it's to spur interest on LAMP projects for Real Estate.

Well anyway, if you really want to attract more attention to this project, here are some important things to consider:

Real estate people mostly don't get the free as in freedom of speech and/or free as in beer concepts.

Want to get their input? Sell the thing, it's still open source, and you're not going against the GPL and should be able to keep your pages at Freshmeat, GNU.org and SF (if you do have a project site there).

Know how to pimp your project... When targeting RE agents, showcase the commercial features... When targeting coders, showcase the technical features (like plugins/modules, themes, some sort of data extraction layer, etc. etc.)

Most importantly give incentive to people who contributed code/fixes.