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Ask Slashdot: What Defines Success In an Open Source Project?

Posted by Soulskill on from the having-people-care-enough-to-complain-endlessly dept.

rbowen writes "Nine years ago, Slashdot readers discussed what makes an Open Source project successful. The answers were varied, of course. An academic paper summarized the results, agreeing (albeit with more precision) that motivations for Open Source projects are varied. Has anything changed since then? In the era of mobile apps, social media, and Google Ad revenue, have the definitions of Open Source project success changed at all? Have your reasons changed for being involved in Open Source?"

1 of 88 comments (clear)

  1. Sales figures by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    Oh wait, you don't have those.

    Open source is a broken model. How are you going to get reliable metrics from a disorganized, ad-hoc group of users and contributors? With real software, you know exactly how popular it is based on how many licenses have sold. You also have the benefit of getting support from the experts who have an incentive (money) to respond to you in a timely and respectful fashion (as opposed to the arrogance typically seen on support forums and mailing lists for OSS projects.) A closed source product also has the benefit of added security, without all of those prying eyes scouring for bugs.