Slashdot Mirror
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?"
What other thoughts does Slashdot have on this subject?"
"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?
What other thoughts does Slashdot have on this subject?"
Samba-tng forked off of samba quite a while ago. The user base using tng is still very small. There is a flurry of people checking it out each time a new release comes out (Which lately has been due to security problems in both code bases).
The user lists are fairly slow, and there are a few developers on the dev lists. The development is still highly active, but the purpose of TNG isn't as important to most people as the functionality and features of Samba it self. The people who need to the changes made in TNG, will go to TNG. However, the vast majority of people don't need anything beyond what the base Samba 2.x or 3.x code has.
Then again.. I would also say, most people haven't checked out the rad features included in rpcclient with tng.. which makes pen testing windows extremely easy.. Oh wait, so does dcom.
Yeah but how many Real Estate agents read Freshmeat? 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... Which is, of course, silly to do for a free project.
The majority of user base propably upgraded to the incompatible version. People simply may not need your fork, but it's always a good thing to have for those who need it (40 people is quite a lot IMHO for a real estate open source software :))
I too maintain niche projects, some bigger than others, some more popular than others. Here's how I understand the dynamics of a community around a projects. You have 3 cases :
... i.e. bits of work done not by you, but you still end up integrating the changes and act as the only maintainer of the project.
1) your project is too specialized, you have a smallish community of people who use it, few bug reports now and then, and you end up doing all the work on your project.
2) your project is interesting enough that the community around it grows to a point where most of the improvements come from patches, bug reports
3) your project is very interesting and the community around it grows exponentially. The improvements / bug reports flood you and, essentially, your own bandwidth is not enough to maintain the project. You have to delegate and trust other people, in which case A) you're a shitty project manager and someone else who has that talent eventually makes a code fork and takes it over, or B) you become a successful OSS project maintainer, the extreme case of which, for example, is Linus.
The added fun is that, if you code well while you start the project, it can go from a shitty thing to something of interest, just because the look-n-feel that detracted people from trying it before now attracts more people. That's where all the interest is, see how you can "prime the pump" and build a community around your ideas by doing the initial work, then watch the improvements come already made.
I personally choose to create/maintain projects that I reckon will fall in or near category 2), because I don't want to maintain big projects anymore, with the flood of patches, suggestions and hate mail that comes with it, but I don't want to end up having my name associated with a shitty tarball that nobody cares about either.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
Also, never underestimate the power of a slashdot sig ;)
/. and other sites, emails, etc. If you need something specific, ask for help on Sourceforge, etc.
Seriously, sigs for
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
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.
No kidding. The fact is that big shops will write their own (or implement a large CRM, or...), while the small shops will follow the path of least resistance (like not doing computer-based anything, or keeping it to a minimum). Your best bet would be to set up an ASP (Application Service Provider) to host their data so they can get at it over the web, or set up appliance machines to do this task (or both).
This is one case where GPLed software has little value by itself (because there's few people to implement it in its target market), but you could add lots of value by implementing it (and make money in the process).
"Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana." --Groucho Marx
Dylan is a wonderful, elegant, extensible language that really puts Java to shame. Usually when there's a programming language article on slashdot, people end up describing their dream language... and it usually what they describe matches Dylan quite well. But still it's very hard to attract new programmers to the language.
It's a great compiler, and a team using it earned second place in the 2001 ICFP Programming Contest. The compiler is still being improved, but in all honestly, there's just a few dedicated volunteers working on it.
I don't know how to explain it's lack of "success", except to note that few geeks are really geeky enough to stray away from the mainstream languages.
Buzz is when other people say good things about you. Hype is when you try to inflate activity by going about it yourself.
I prefer buzz. My own software projects are posted on my web servers and have plenty to offer to those who find them. Someone eventually wanders by, sees it, likes it, then mentions it to someone else. Many of these mentions happen on Usenet or mailing lists that get archived. Now people searching for certain terms will find those posts that link to me.
Eventually, people who run directories like dmoz will get a hold of it and index it somewhere. This will get even more people coming by. Over time, you'll build a base of users who have it installed and stop by once in awhile to see what's new. Having a moderated mailing list that does nothing but announce new releases helps a lot.
This is not an exaggeration. I have a project that's gone from rather small to pleasantly healthy in the space of about 5 years. To give you some idea of how long ago it was, I posted my one and only direct reference to it here on Slashdot before you had to log in. Back in those days you could just put in a name, u@h, and URL, and it would be attached to your post.
You also have to realize that some projects are not going to have a very large audience. Unless you happen to address the needs of many, don't expect a whole lot of activity. Those who find it will appreciate it, but the rest simply have no use for it. That's life.
By the way, you can probably get by without appearing on Freshmeat constantly. My own projects have only had a couple of announcements on there, all due to someone else. None of those people really stayed with it, so the last version is stuck at something from a year ago. I don't operate on the basis of updating other web sites, so it's not going to be maintained by me, either.
Apparently slashdot posts work pretty well too. 40 visits in 30 minutes, and still counting...
The most important thing is that it is useful to you.
I recently listed a project on freshmeat as well as posted information to usenet newsgroups where some will find it relative and interesting to the newsgroup.
The description was edited by a freshmeat editor and could probably be written differently to attract a little more attention. But this project is not going to die, cause I won't let it... Cause it's useful to me, and that's the most important I can think of.
projects smaller than "large" usually consist of one-three maintainers, some 3-4 "minor contributors" who supply hints, bug reports, small handy hacks and good ideas on irregular basis, several "fans" who look for updates, sometimes report bugs or help newcomers by answering questions, and besides that, small, regular flux of visitors who come, maybe ask a question or two, look, eventually download and go usually without ever saying thank you. I've seen that with several projects I participated in, as such "fan" or "minor contributor". From time to time some fan or minor contributor leaves, sometimes a new one finds it and stays. If the maintainer leaves the project though, it dies quite quickly, unless someone else decides to take over and continue the work. That doesn't happen often though.
:) 3) No suggestions, ideas, patches - probably the design is so good that nobody feels need for these.
:)
:)
Look at this from positive side. 1) 40 visitors a day, means maybe 1-4 new sites using your software. 2) No bug reports - probably no bugs so that's very good, isn't it?
(of course it could be opposite, after first look people discard it and never think about it again, but...
One of good ideas to "exist" on the market is to package your stuff for some major distributions and try to include it - even if not in core of one, then at least in official software archives. So crazy people like me, who look through all packages dselect displays get to notice it
45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
Most people don't want the best piece of software available for a problem. They want software which is good enough. Once they've found something which is good enough, they'll probably stay with it, even if better options become available.
To take a personal example, bsdiff is a tool for generating binary patches (in particular, for upgrading software). It is measurably and quantifiably better -- that is, it produces smaller patch files -- than any other software available, both free and commercial (eg, $2750/seat). Despite this, the only place where I'm aware of bsdiff being used is in another project of my own (FreeBSD Update). Most people found a tool which was "good enough" for their needs a long time ago, and aren't going to change now.
Tarsnap: Online backups for the truly paranoid
Yep, I'm learning this. But not for the reasons you think. Try advertising a free project using Google's adwords. They'll kill the ad, asking you to substantiate the claim that the software is free. However, they don't actually give you any method to substantiate the claim -- they only give you the option to change the ad! I tried replying via email (never read/responded to) and even adding text to my Web site to note that the project was under a BSD license. No response, no way to undo their block.
Hmm. Now that I'm ranting about it, I think I'll change the ad text from "free" to "open source" and see if they block that. Fewer people will understand it, but a gimped ad is better than none, I guess.
My Greasemonkey scripts for Digg &
Seeing those hits is somewhat addicting. Between the various programs I've released I see quite a few total hits (though many individual programs are pretty low) and always get a thrill when I see people actually using my programs. I do really like user feedback especially but that is somewhat rare.
;)
Projects with broader appeal do get more hits and more feedback although I find that projects that are written well (few bugs or missing features) get very little feedback also. People just don't seem to write just to say thanks very often.. they usually only write if they want something.
If you're interested in donations to your project I'll say that you should probably forget it. Before 9/11 I got a small but steady trickle of donations coming in.. since then there has not been a single donation. I guess people are donated out or maybe I've just sucked since that time.
At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.