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Why Freeloaders Are Essential To FOSS Project Success

Posted by Soulskill on from the happy-to-not-help dept.

dp619 writes "Outercurve Foundation technical director Stephen Walli has written a blog post arguing that attracting users is fundamental to the ability of open source projects to recruit 'new blood' and contributors who are willing to code. 'So in the end, it's all about freeloaders, but from the perspective that you want as many as possible. That means you're "doing it right" in developing a broad base of users by making their experience easy, making it easy for them to contribute, and ultimately to create an ecosystem that continues to sustain itself,' he wrote."

3 of 86 comments (clear)

  1. More like bait and switch by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Lure them in with promises that Linux is ready for the desktop, then force them to help fix the sorry mess. Only report a bug if you want it to coming flying back as a boomerang for you to help debug/trace/fix/that yourself. And I'm only about half trolling.

  2. I hearby volunteer ... by PPH · · Score: 4, Funny

    ... my services along with 30 years of experience as a freeloader.

    --
    Have gnu, will travel.
  3. Re:Force in numbers by ButchDeLoria · · Score: 3, Funny

    It goes in reverse, actually; the less people that use a FOSS project, the better it is. After all, open source is only for hipsters that can't afford a proper operating system.