What Makes a Good Open Source Project?
We talked in Chapter 1, The Whats and Whys of Open Source, about the whats and whys of open source and looked a bit at the how in the context of existing open source projects. In this chapter, we will look at what makes a good open source project. We will look at some of the key characteristics of what a good open source project looks like, some of the pitfalls I’ve seen when open source projects aren’t created with the idea of building community, and, finally, some patterns and anti-patterns for open source projects.
The concept of a good open source project is by no means a trivial one. I get asked this question routinely, usually in a conversation that goes something like this:
Person: “So, how does my project compare to other projects you work with?”
Me: “Well, that’s a hard comparison to make.”
Person: “Why is that?”
Me: “Each project is different; different...
