Open Source Project Management for Beginners?

aendeuryu asks: "So I've been getting the programming bug again, and I started up a Sourceforge project for a game I'm trying to write. Development is going really well so far, but I've quickly realized that programming in my own personal vaccuum for my own personal pleasure is completely different from programming for the community at large. Things I never needed to worry about -- applying patches, writing documentation, license requirements, creating autoconf files for Linux compatibility -- are suddenly my responsibility. Now, I'm trained in programming in several languages, using databases and specialized libraries, etc. but when it comes to deployment for, and interacting with, the Open Source community at large, I know just about nothing. So, to all the veterans out there, where is a good place to go to get your feet wet on this? Is there any good advice for people who are getting started in OS project management?"

Comments

I recommend Tutos

[Korgan]

Tutos.

Its one of the most versatile project tools I've used for development projects. Full time management and accounting, tasks, there were even gantt charts addons, although I cannot remember where to find them.

Beyond project management, this also starts to grow into things like resource management. Its a very comprehensive package that I find extremely useful.

PHP+SQL and released under the GPL2. Will run on pretty much any platform (I have it on OSX, Apache+postgre) and easy to use once you get used to it. ;)

Give your community a good place to meet

[jtapper]

This might be a little ways down the road for your, but here goes anyway.
In my opinion, these are three essential things for your developer and user community to grow:

- bug tracking software (I recommend mantis)
- forums (I recommend anything other than the sourceforge forums)
- code repository (again I recommend using subversion on your own box rather than cvs at sourceforge)

The bug tracking software will allow you to set milestones and log issues so you can build towards those milestones. It gives active users as well as new users a good idea of what work is being done, at what pace, and your intended direction.

The forums are a great place for developer discussion to sort out what the next great feature will be or how to solve the current roadblock. Also makes for great reference material for new users. Almost like self documentation.

And obviously your code repository will give users easy access to checking out the latest changes and also commiting their contributions.

Let your community give you feedback on your project and steer the direction while you act as the figure head to sort out any conflicting needs/wants within the community. Remember that if your users/developers lose interest, your community will suffer.

Don't get too excited

[Scarblac]

If your case is typical, you will be programming on your own time for a long time to come. Just that it's on Sourceforge doesn't mean people are playing your game, let alone supplying patches - you should be very happy to receive one or two patches in the first year.

The important thing is to stay active, code a lot, and not let your project turn into yet another dead Sourceforge project. And then just handle things as they come up.

For 95% of the projects out there, there really isn't any difference between an open source project and something you just do on your own.

Re:Don't get too excited

[reynaert]

The code was finished (at least from our perspective, we couldn't think of any way to improve upon it) and now it looks like a failed project, even though it's finished, stable and documented.

But on Sourceforge you list it as "Status: Alpha/Beta", your last release was 0.2 half a year ago and the mailing list is inactive. You web site has no documentation, no references to projects using your code, and, again, no mailing lists. It has all the tell-tale signs of a failed project.

So my recommendations:

• Put the documentation online.
• Given that there's a second developer, communicate over the mailing list. Don't use private mail or IM. That way other people can comment too, and, well, participate in development. Or just see that the developers are still active.
• Even if there are no other developers, even if you know nobody is subscribed, still send at least announcements of new versions to the list.
• Put your own mailing list archive online, or use GMane. SF's mailing list archives suck.
• If you believe your code is stable, don't advertise it as "alpha". Just go ahead and call it 1.0. If it turns out you want to make some large changes, call it 2.0.
• Back to your website. Get rid of that stupid contact form. Who even uses those things? Advertise your mailing list instead.
• Get rid of PHP. Your site is slow and has ugly URL's. It's much easier to refer somebody to http://pobs.sf.net/download.html than to http://pobs.sf.net/index.php?section=9&page=25.

Follow-up questions on the above

[aendeuryu]

I didn't want to clutter the submission with my own personal dumb questions, so here they are:

* All my development right now is on a Windows box. What's the best way to go about ensuring Linux/POSIX compatibility over the web? Compile farms? Recruiting a Linux maintainer?

* If I don't have access to my own server, where is the best place to host? Sourceforge (the only one I really know about) or somewhere else?

* Somebody's submitted a patch. What's the protocol for crediting them for the work?

* What are the criteria for determining whether or not something is "pre-alpha", "alpha", "beta", etc. Is there a set standard, or do I get to determine this on my own?

* How useful are wikis for OS projects?

* If I have legal questions regarding licenses or IP, who should I talk to?

Re:Follow-up questions on the above

[Yaztromo]

As an Open Source developer myself, who likewise has their project hosted on SourceForge, maybe I can help somewhat.

* All my development right now is on a Windows box. What's the best way to go about ensuring Linux/POSIX compatibility over the web? Compile farms? Recruiting a Linux maintainer?

This can be a really hard question to answer. Ideally you'd like to find yourself a maintainer to work with you on this sort of thing, but finding one is a different matter. Such a maintainer will either worm their own way out of the woodwork, or they won't. Recruiting one yourself will probably be a lengthy and fruitless prospect.

In the more than two years my project has been Open Source (it was closed source freeware for 5 years), recruiting more people to work on the project has been nearly useless. In that time, after lots of recruitment campaigns, I've found only 4 or 5 people who have actually made any significant contributions to the project and all of its sub-projects (the last time I tried to run a recruitment campaign a few weeks ago I got about 50 responses, virtually all from India, who somehow interpreted "looking for a volunteer developer" to mean I was looking to hire someone for a job :P).

* If I don't have access to my own server, where is the best place to host? Sourceforge (the only one I really know about) or somewhere else?

Depends completely on your project. SourceForge is a good general place to host your project if nothing else fits -- they provide a good service IMO -- but they also host any project which is Open Source. If you can find one, you might be better off using something which is a more targeted community for your type of project, whether it be by language/develpment environment used, target OS, application type, etc. That is, if you're developing a Java-based project, java.net is a good choice, as everyone there is working in Java. If you're developing on OS/2, netlabs.org is where you'll find other OS/2 developers (what few there still are). If you're coding for Linux on the PlayStation 2, playstation2-linux.com is the place for you.

Don't forget -- nothing really prevents you from registering your project on every project site that suits your project, although maintaining all of those active communities might prove very time consuming!

* Somebody's submitted a patch. What's the protocol for crediting them for the work?

Create your own. Typically what I do is credit the user by name and e-mail address during the CVS check-in. As I use the CVS log as the basis of the changelog for each release, this information also becomes part of the changelog. I also try to add an entry for them to my "Special Thanks" section of my Release Notes, and sometimes a comment crediting their fix/addition right in the source code. If the contribution is really significant, they usually also get a credit in the copyright statement.

One thing you should do, however, (something that I try to do at least), is to ask them if they want credit. Some people won't (and I've had a few contributions like this) for various reasons. Maybe they don't want to be bothered with questions, or maybe their employer has a draconian policy against this sort of thing (although in the latter case, you probably don't want to accept anything new from them so as to CYA. A minor fix that won't be subject to any copyright problems should be fine, however (ie: someone pointing out that an "i--" should be "i++", etc.).

* What are the criteria for determining whether or not something is "pre-alpha", "alpha", "beta", etc. Is there a set standard, or do I get to determine this on my own?

Well, there used to be a standard, but far too many projects have v