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How To Spread Word About My FOSS Project?
An anonymous reader writes "I'm in a bit of a bind with an open source web software project of mine. It's a very small project that I've been developing for over three years. By now it's got a promising feature set, but very few users and virtually no community around it. The problem is that people I have asked to try it refuse to do so because it doesn't have a thriving community. It's an infinite loop: without users, we won't have a community, and without a community, users aren't coming. So, Slashdot, my question is: how can I build a community and help get the word out about a project led by 2 people and with only 5-6 regulars on our forum and IRC?"
1. Developers are king. If you could attract one more developer, your project would stand a much higher chance of success.
2. Just because you open-sourced your project doesn't mean it's useful to anyone. No matter how much we geeks don't like marketing, you have to think hard about your users: where are they, what do they care about and what do they really need?
It's normal for all new projects to languish for a while. If you think twitter was an instant success, remember that it had 2 years of null traffic before taking off. Go out and ask users what they want. Think. Then implement. Your #1 potential mistake today: feature creep. Don't think that if only you added this one more feature, the crowds would come. If anything, try to simplify things :-) and start communicating (posting on slashdot is not ideal, you should post wherever your users are, not talk to developers).
Ignoring asking about it on the Ask Slashdot section (which you intelligently avoided);
Get friendlier with the people that are interested in the project. Not just answering their questions, but actually become a friend with them. Then ask them to do the same to other people. And get friendlier with many of them. It works in real life circles and it works in computer circles - some people are just going to lose interest no matter what you do, so you're better of getting to know as many people as you know (as you're better of getting to know as many girls as possible)
Spreading word about FOSS project is actually no different than what it is in the real world. Charisma, getting people to work with you and having a reason to do so. We would all like everything to be just on mere technical terms, but it really isn't so. Learning to interact with people the best way goes a long way - in business world, in FOSS world, with girls.
If there were any info. on what the project is and where to check it out. (I realize a lot of people would have made snarky comments if that info had been included too. A regular catch 22 -- but this is a great opportunity and you should post a description and link to the project in this thread.)
Without any specifics I would think most answers are going to be just as generic. Post about it in different message boards, post about it at aggregator type sites (reddit, digg) - use twitter, facebook or whatever else might help people find out about it.
Who are the intended users? Where would those people be that you might show up and promote your project? Are their user groups that might be a good place to frequent?
Would a publication/site that deals with FOSS or whatever problem your project solves be interested in doing a write-up? Will they accept one from someone on the project or one of the users?
If it runs on Linux is it available through the package management systems of the major distros?
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
I'd agree, except it might help to a) not post Anonymously b) include a link to the project in the posting c) say what it does and why it would be good for us. If you do none of the above, then the reason why your project is unheard of becomes obvious.
=~ s,(.*),<sarcasm>$1</sarcasm>,g if any_point_you_wish();
Nope, Slashdot is actually an exception to the three-phase model, because this is what happens:
1) Post a message to Slashdot
2) Get Slashdotted
3) Spend all potential profits on bandwidth charges
Agreed. Even if 99/100 people say "this project is useless", "you suck as a coder", or they just flagrantly troll you, if you inform even one person who says to themselves "I sure wish someone had an open sourced lolcats generator" that you, in fact, have a feature rich and maturing open sourced lolcats generator, you are still increasing your community by a significant percentage.
Some of us might be interested, other might consider it shameless self promotion. If slashdot was doing front page adverts for every tiny FOSS project, we'd never hear any real news.
AccountKiller
Some of us might be interested, other might consider it shameless self promotion. If slashdot was doing front page adverts for every tiny FOSS project, we'd never hear any real news.
So, kind'a like now? :)
Like some have already said, time is your only enemy. Websites that need numbers to thrive take time. It is like a snow-ball effect, at first you'll have only 4-5 people (probably your friends), but that friend will tell the next person, and you'll be up to 10 users, and so on and so forth. Eventually it'll grow on its own without any need for intervention from your side.
./ as a way to promote, it's obvious you are - so USE IT!
My bittorrent tracker took probably 6 months before it started taking off thanks to word of mouth. Now maxed out at 8,000 users and that's only because of server limitations. Perseverence and waiting is your only choice at this point.
And remember, your only chance of making it ahead of others is offering something that nobody does, so ask yourself what *new* are you bringing to the playing field? If the answer is "not much" then I'm afraid you'll have a tough time.
And like others said, you failed to list your website, which was a big mistake - don't worry about looking like you're trying to use
The magical number is: 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
You have a crew of nerds here who are all about open source and you refer to your project as "an open source web software project of mine" and are asking for more users?!
You must be new here.
It's kinda sad that you didn't put it in the summary, as others pointed out before me, you really did miss out. Good luck getting it in in the comments, everybody who skims the summaries won't even see it...
If he -had- posted it in the article, 70% of the comments would berate him for slashvertisement. So it's a case of damned if you do, damned if you don't.
GAAH! MY PRINTER IS ON FIRE!!! PUT IT OUT! PUT IT OUT!
No it's not. He didn't name the product and he even posted AC. You can't get any more "This is not an advertisement" ... unless he's REALLY good at it, and is drumming up curiosity.
Your project will have to stand on its own merits then and you will have to be focal about what those merits are. Hold talks at conferences, mention it to your friends, keep an updated blog, use FLOSS-distribution sites like freshmeat. If people are interested you will hear from them.
If that doesn't help and you are sure your project is worthwhile you should investigate in your competition, take a good unbiased look. If there are a couple of large projects with large communities that accomplish something similar make sure you differentiate yourself from them. What makes your project unique and better than the rest? Perhaps those projects have something your project doesn't. A large community may be a plus but it isn't the only reason why users pick a certain project.
If you can't make your project grow, relax and don't force the issue. If your project is truly worthwhile people will find it and the ones using your project will spread the word. If it doesn't gain popularity you can at least enjoy working on it and take pride in what you accomplish: the FLOSS community isn't a popularity-contest and there is no free car waiting for the one project that trumps the rest.
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So, it's like... an actual question? On "Ask Slashdot"?! Wow.
I've been involved with a project which fitted this description almost perfectly: FOSS webapp which was dependent on a community it never really had. I almost thought the question could be about it, until I visited its page to find that it's being closed down. It may sound obvious, but I think what really did for that project was that it didn't do anything people could already do. Specifically, a large part of its functionality was replicating things that Facebook did, and maybe 99% of its target users were on Facebook. Without a compelling reason to use it, it never really took off, and the developers weren't enthused enough to create the grand new features that had been planned.
Getting critical mass in the first place is hard. I wonder if there's any stories out there about how Facebook/Myspace/Twitter first got started. As others have said, you'll need to sell it to your friends first, then work at keeping them happy until they're happy to recommend it to their friends. Perhaps focus at first on the non-social aspects of the site, that don't depend on community, then be ready to shift to a more social model once you've got a couple of dozen users. An empty forum is just depressing, but some old-fashioned content is useful even for the very first visitor.
Oh, and since everyone's busy berating you for not giving the name: well done on not Slashvertising! Although I admit I'm also curious about it.
Am I the only to think that if a project doesn't get a grip at all it's MAYBE because it is not that useful to people? In my experience, projects do benefit from a community boost, but 90% of the work is still having a useful application that people desire.
For every successful FOSS project there are
hundreds of wannabes. Most are ignored, and
rightfully so. Yours might be different... you
do have more than just yourself involved.
But so often one hears the whine, "won't someone
please join my little project" and there's just
nothing there worth looking at. Could this be you?
Hey you! Open source developer! This is your chance! Post the name of your project and pretend you posted the original question!
The MSN part is troll-ish, some parts are oversimplistic and troll-ish aswell but...
While I'm a supporter of FOSS software, things like that do happen. There's a great deal of truth in that text.
Ironically, it also applies to proprietary software. The difference? We never hear about that.
Look, you aren't doing this for us, you're doing it for you. If you are doing a craftsmanlike job that's not a put down. Write software that pleases you. Make it available to others. If they could benefit from it and choose not to, that's not your problem.
"But it's all right now, I've learned my lesson well
You see, you can't please everyone, so you've got to please yourself"
Ricky Nelson, Garden Party 1972
That said, a brief statement of what the software does and a link to the project home page would not have been out of place.
You can't see ANYTHING from a car, You've got to get out of the goddamned contraption and walk...Edward Abbey
1. Put it on Sourceforge
2. Give it a good intro description
3. Plenty of screen-shots
4. Good documentation
5. Plenty of examples, both very simple and semi-fancy
6. Make it easy to install
7. Make sure it doesn't suck
8. Read and respond to feedback
Table-ized A.I.
(After looking at Enano CMS.)
No one else mentioned this but for utility, as a user, I would also look for:
*Now* we know why no one's using your open source project -- because it's Yet Another CMS!
If you're trying to drive a new project in a space that already has a clear incumbent, you're in for a tough climb.
If you're trying to drive a new project in a space that already has several clear incumbents, you're in for a *really* tough climb.
If you're trying to drive a new project in a space that already has several clear incumbents and hundreds of failures, you're in for... ...well, you see where I'm going here.
I'm sure your CMS is different. It's sensitive and nurturing and really cares about me in a way that those other CMSes don't, and would never throw me out of the car for getting drunk at Andy's party that night. I get it. But when you're competing against the Star Quarterback of CMS projects, you *must* define what is unique about your project, and you must *market* that uniqueness. And you'd better be right, too -- because otherwise, you can forget about getting a date to the CMS prom.
I run a small project about the age of yours, and it has a user base of several thousand users. It started out as a Linux alternative to a piece of commercial software. I believe the following has contributed to its success:
...and so are complaints about the commercial software.
- I joined the existing community forums
- Made sure the software doesn't suck. I started by giving a few distinguishing features that the commercial software simply doesn't offer (data recovery, allowing the use of low cost hardware rather than $200 commercial hardware) giving it an edge over the commercial offering. Many of the distinguishing features were features *I* needed, so others likely did too.
- Made sure my project was cross-platform; although I started it as a Linux project, the majority of the user base are Windows and Mac users.
- I went on to make sure my software can do *everything* that the commercial software does.
- I did set up a website asking for feedback, feature suggestions etc. which is a great source of inspiration for new features.
-
- To be fair, the commercial software is no longer being developed (but it's still being sold!), which means by now Windows 7 users are starting to have trouble running it. But in any case, I'm not dealing with a moving target.
- I never worried about Google, but I did make sure to mention the link to the software on the forum if someone asked a question that the software resolved. Eventually, word of mouth got out and people outside the forum started posting the link as well.
So basically, rather than building up a new community from scratch, I built on top of an existing one. It's terribly hard to sell a fax machine if nobody else has one; but if there is a community of fax machine users out there, maybe you can build better fax machines than the company that created the market.
Finally, if nobody hears about your project, nobody will check it out. Why didn't you mention the name of your project or link to it?
Visit http://ringbreak.dnd.utwente.nl/~mrjb/growingbettersoftware to download your free copy of the book
One of the best ways I have found to get the word out about a free piece of software is to write an article about it. For example, I released a tool called RPGUI in December and I just got done having the second article about it published in IBMSystemsMag.com. You can learn more about the project here: http://mowyourlawn.com/rpgui.html Another benefit to writing an article is that is causes you the software author to go through motions of what a typical user would be confronted with as far as implementing your software. This helps to work out a lot of kinks. HTH, aaronbartell.com