"Our software will be open source", so what

Lately I have heard the term “open source” and the word advantage in the same sentence. And my reaction being “aja and…”, which made me realized that people tag a new project as open source, underestimate the efforts of starting, sustaining and growing a open source project. Even more, I wonder if there are naive enough to think that such tag is enough. Do they think that the by just releasing the code under GPL, MIT, Apache or MPL [licenses], “the community” will bow to them and all the worked and problems will end there? All taggers out there, that is not the case. Like they say “one thing is to talk the talk and other is to walk the walk”.

Based on the definition of the Open Source Initiative, open source is define as:

…is a development method for software that harnesses the power of distributed peer review and transparency of process. The promise of open source is better quality, higher reliability, more flexibility, lower cost, and an end to predatory vendor lock-in.

Think about the following: why should anybody launch a open source project or more important why should you do it ? The whole point of meditating on why people should start open source project, is to fully understand the implications of such initiative. I’m not against open source, furthermore with this post I salute open source initiative. What I don’t agree is the waste of resources of working on a project that is tagged as open source, but there is no plan or road map. Even worst, saying that what makes the project unique is that its open source.

Image Source

Here are something to think about when thinking about your project:

What are the benefits, other than the general specified in the definition above of a open source project. Is the software of value for other people and does it have potential to solve a real problem? But you don’t have the resources to pull it off by yourself. How do you attract a community, how many of those that find it useful are willing to contribute to it? Do you have a plan, how will you keep track of development versions, bugs and request of features? How long will the project be develop privately, before it becomes open source? How do I know when its ready? Finally, will you make money or do the real benefit comes from people working on it… Is this a long term commitment?

While thinking of the above, it suddenly came to me, launching a open source project is like starting a business. Can you see the similarities? Needs resources to start, its not that easy, relives a pain, has a target market, needs a plan (A B C or D), looks to be sustainable, etc. Its not easy and still people try it and many fail. Even if it was easy to start it (using a platform like sourceforge) the project still needs a community, which requires time and effort or a very mature project ( i.e. these guys or these others).

If you don’t like the business analogy, here is another: blogging. Anybody can start a blog, however does that makes you a blogger ? How many blogs are out here that are dead (by the way I have like two). It requires time, effort, long term commitment, quality and a bit of luck (to get noticed). So, just tagging your project.. will simply not make the cut.