[LINK] Producing Open Source Software

post by lsparrish · 2011-06-19T04:31:21.444Z · LW · GW · Legacy · 3 comments

Contents

3 comments

This is an interesting book with a lot of good information on organizing volunteers to accomplish productive ends.

Producing Open Source Software

 

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comment by sketerpot · 2011-06-19T05:27:59.500Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

That book is the long version. The short version, which will do for projects just starting out, is: make some useful code, stick it on GitHub, make sure it's got readable documentation, and by default be nice to everybody who helps out.

The prevalence of this sort of lightweight open source project structure in the node.js community is probably the single largest factor in its success. It also works well elsewhere, but the node.js folks are the most dramatic example I've seen.

comment by jsalvatier · 2011-06-19T05:03:32.083Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

Did you read this book? Would you care to mention what kinds of things you found valuable?

Replies from: novalis
↑ comment by novalis · 2011-06-21T18:18:00.046Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

I did. I also sit next to the guy who wrote it (but I read it years before I met him).

If you take nothing else from it, the bikeshed concept is useful in pretty much any discussion.