Slashdot Mirror
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?"
http://incubator.apache.org/incubation/Incubation_Policy.html
http://incubator.apache.org/guides/proposal.html
-- The Hoss Man
Have good documentations, screenshots, maybe a video. A good website (cms + nice theme, maybe).
Then, wen you do big releases, poke the bloggers or news posters about it. People like to read news.
You can even poke the news-guys if you have something interesting, fun, amazing, to show.
And wen you give articles to news-guys, make these article very good. avoid spell errors, use your better english, etc.. your text must be perfect. This really help these people, and your opportunities, everyone.
-Woof woof woof!
Your software is likely not terribly useful, difficult to set up, and/or not as useful as something which is easier to set up. It might also be ugly compared to the competition.
You might also have an unreasonable requirement; eg. Postgresql (not MySQL, etc.) for a backend database on, say, a note/reminder application. That's a bit of a headache to setup. Poor documentation? There ya go - most people aren't intimately familiar w/ every piece of software out there and wouldn't be able to follow the sparse breadcrumbs of documentation. (Just guessing here, I don't know your project.)
Let me take gxemul, an architecture emulator (ARM, MIPS, Motorola 88K, PowerPC, and SuperH). It's got very limited utility - IE, mainly for nostalgic users, hobbyists, or possibly as a way to make cross-compilation easier (by doing it 'native'). I've used it for the latter two purposes, and it does a good enough job that I got what I needed to get done (mostly).
As far as I know, it's got a single active developer. The IRC channel has under a dozen users, with maybe 2-3 active at a time max (last I checked). Yet, as a project, it seems to do pretty well.
Something you might try: packaging your project for a couple distributions and trying to get it added, with yourself as the package maintainer. I know that awesome (the window manager) is packaged in most distros at a reasonably current version, despite its fast paced development (it's under 2 years old, as a project). Having those packages available has certainly helped spread its adoption.
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
Make it as easy as possible for users to try your software.
Agreed, and here are some tips:
- Provide a decent and updated documentation.
- Provide sensible defaults and (if that applies) pre-configured and commented configuration files.
Take the time to create and maintain packaging for major Linux and BSD distributions. Or at least make it as easy as possible for someone to maintain a distribution package of the current stable version.
Hmm... It depends.
Is your software for non-technical end-users? Then it may be a good idea to provide packages for the most popular OSes.
Is your software for server-like purposes and for a technical audience? If you provide pre-compiled packages, you may end with lots with non-technical people bothering you in your personal e-mail address (no matter how clearly you state that the mailing lists are the proper channel for that).
If your software is desireable, voluntary packagers will appear eventually (BTW thanks for your work, packagers!).
(...)
Of course it has to be useful. Preferably better than the other free (either gratis or open-source / libre) alternatives.
Does the usefulness of the web software itself increase with an increased userbase? Look at marketing that deals with the network effect. In general, look at IT marketing, consider what would work with your target userbase, and try to go with that. How much do you know about your userbase? Market research is vital, even on FLOSS projects.
All those are valid remarks.
If your project is better than the alternatives (or even unique), you have to state that clearly.
Your potential users must be told, clearly, what for is your project and why it is so good.... and it's a good idea to provide snapshots/examples/whatever showing your software in action to "prove" your claims.
Well-known projects do not need such - let's say - advertising, so often their websites presumes you know what is that all about.
But it's not your project's case and you cannot afford such luxury.
Last time my project got mentioned on Slashdot, I saw around 50,000 additional downloads for that release.
So even if it's one-shot, that one-shot can still be big.
I'm genuinely curious how you produced an AC's name.
It's only an insult if it's not true.
Just tell us the name already!
Make a website that is clean and understandable.
If the project is mature then it should be usable in the real world. Get it used.
Make articles in newspapers. Get interview with client if they agree.
Put client names on homepage if they agree.
Contact blogs etc. about it and post it also on sites like freshmeat, etc.
Respond lightning fast to queries and monitor online media.
Write a column or blog describing what you do and new plugins etc. If it is useful people who already trust open source will try it.
If it is too complex a system maybe that is a problem too. Simple things that are easy to understand tend to get sold quickly.
Personally I'd be worried about trusting a system written by a tiny team with no real world clients, except as a hobby.
Maybe you want to tell Wikipedia to update their page to include you in a category list too.
Make sure all references link to your site. This will raise your google ranking.
Talk to schools or potential customers and actually install and support it. This is your living right?
Finally, tell us what the project is in the comments here. Yeesh!