12 things to avoid in order to make an open source project successful

ByOpensource.com

Make the development of software easier by enabling anyone to access information, making recipes freely reconstruct, modify, redistributeOpen source softwareAlthough there are projects that develop around the world, in terms of making an open source project successful, from the viewpoint of "What should we fundamentally think about open source software?", "What kind of license should I use? Is not it?OpenSolarisOf engineers' failure as an exampleBryan CantrillMr. is summarizing.

Corporate Open Source Anti-patterns
http://www.slideshare.net/bcantrill/corporate-open-source-antipatterns

Slides can be seen from the following.


In 2005Sun MicrosystemsIs an open source projectOpenSolarisThe system information acquisition functionDTraceThe source code of various software including the source code has been released. OpenSolaris as OS has played a major role to make the information of software that was monopolized until now open, but if Sun Microsystems was absorbed and integrated in Oracle in 2010, it will be available to the OpenSolaris community With Oracle who was not interested and did not care about open source, OpenSolaris's path of travel will be greatly narrowed.

On August 13, 2010, information based on a document containing the expression "OpenSolaris is officially now dead." Will be circulated and confused. And Oracle announced that it will withdraw the so-called nightly code, although maintaining the open source itself. Depending on the attitude of Oracle that closes the open system, members of the community fork (branch) from OpenSolaris "OpenIndianaOpened. I am continuing activities to the present without receiving support from Oracle.

OpenIndiana is operated under the umbrella association "illumos foundation" derived from "illuminare" meaning "education, edification" in the Latin word and "OS" which is an abbreviation for operating system, and the implementation was released in OpenSolaris build 27ZFSAnd DTrace etcCommon Development and Distribution License(CDDL) was continued to develop. And a few years after the establishmentOmniOSYaSmartOSThe distribution of an open and free OS such as the community is being steadily maintained steadily.

Solaris, OpenSolaris, and illumos contain a lot of lessons about the power of open source and the challenge of opening closed things. Failure created with respect to OpenSolaris was not created from malice, but was created from good intent to the last, not "error" but "Anti pattern"is.

There are many cases where software developers make it open source, but, what is "what should not be done" learned from OpenSolaris is engineer'sBryan CantrillMr. was held in BrazilFISLThe 12 points are summarized in the slide when giving a lecture.

◆ 01: True opposite

ByDan Hatton

This is a natural way of thinking about making something, but we tend to think about "how much profit comes out" about open source software. However, in open source, profits are second and third, and what you should think about is "How much does it cost?" Basically, the software costs less to manufacture. Exceptionally, costs only occur when someone pays money and requests commercialization or support.

◆ 02: Wishful observation

ByNgo Quang Minh

People who use your software will not pay you money. What is important is not "whether you will pay money" or "whether you use your software" or not. If you understand this thoroughly, you should be able to focus on the second and third advantages of open source. In other words, the fact that many people use it for software is important for improvement, and there are many merits by having many people use software without getting money.

◆ 03: There is no source

ByNyuhuhuu

In December 2011Hewlett-PackardIsWebOSWe announced to open source the source code, the webOS was eventually sold to LG Electronics in Korea in February 2013 without source code being released. It often happens that companies announce "open source" without exposing source code, but this is a foolish mistake. There is nothing to get, it just loses trust, so do not do such things.

◆ 04: Fear of being forked

ByMike Bailey-Gates

The more complicated and massive the software,forkThe developmental effort is wasted by the fear of being born. However, the fork has a paradox that "it is difficult to fork the community as it is easy to fork the software", the more complicated the software, the more experimenters have become opponents, the forkers It is an endless contest, or it is a matter of sorting out.

Because open source creates vibrancy by being forked, it can be said that companies should promote forking rather than forking.

◆ 05: Overheating consensus building

ByTintin 44

Fear of being forked is one of the harmful actions among open source antipatterns. When forking is technically difficult, the community is forced to "approve" the software. Of course, people do not really agree with each other, so an agreement is formed to decide the will of the group, but if a majority decision is made, "law" and "lose group" will be born, discord between the community It will happen.

If the company is not afraid of being forked, the consensus building of the community will not overheat, and will be appropriately booming.

◆ 06: Fake democracy

ByMike Hiatt

Worse than paraphrasing or losing community democracy is to build fake democracy. Open source and democracy are closely related, but companies should not think that "we must give democracy to the community". Democracy is not done from above.

◆ 07: Avoid leadership

ByKevin Bond

A good open source project has good leadership. Consensus building is important, but leadership is needed when agreement is not made.

Companies should not be afraid to demonstrate leadership in projects. What is good leadershipTender dictator of life(Benevolent Dictator For Life / BDFL) B, that is, Benevolent (benevolent). To that end, it is necessary to give visibility to technical leaders, employees. As a matter of course, "The company does not reform, but people reform."

◆ 08: Avoid possession

ByCrazy Cake Lady

Foundation of open source software seems to be good at first glance, but in fact it is complicated and you need an independent director and capital to get tax exemption. In addition, making it a foundation means that a company is technically away from software, and in reality there are many disadvantages both technically and otherwise. In the United States "Let's Found Software" is to legally abandon leadership, so let's have ownership of the software firmly.

◆ 09: Become competitive

ByLouis

Perhaps you think that other companies make it open source before your company becomes open source, but as you think that "that company is fucking" the other party is also I think that "that company is fucking", so basically the technology will not be stolen.

In addition, we will not use or purchase existing societies because of the different origins of products etc.NIHAlthough it is said to be a syndrome (not invented here) syndrome, NIH's tendency is strong in the free software community, so even if rival applies stolen technology it will go wrong and go bankrupt.

◆ 10: Avoid co-licensing


To confront our own nature of competitive crazy, dareGPLVersion 2 license andAGPLLicenseCopy leftThere is also a way to use the license of. However, the idea of ​​copyleft that all people must be able to use, redistribute, and modify copyrighted works is an interesting attempt, but in most cases the license will not be useful.

Actually, the utilization of GPL version 2 and AGPL isApacheYaBSD·MITIt is decreasing with the increase of utilization rate.


GitHubEven looking at the top 50 projects that are receiving the most attention, the GPL and AGPL are very few, and most of them use MIT, BSD, Apache licenses. If you want to use the copy left license,MPLIt is recommended to use something with weak copyleft like that.


◆ 11: For profitDual licenseuse

ByLouis

"Distribute free and open software version for free and profit by providing a commercial license version to a corporationThere are times when you see companies that use dual licenses in such a way. However, this only spreads out uncertain fear of copyleft licenses. Dual licenses should only be used when donating licenses with stringent restrictions on commercial use.

◆ 12: License transfer under severe conditions

ByJD Hancock

Since some companies do not have affinity for open source like Oracle, it is necessary to pay attention to transfer of demanding licenses. Transfer of copyrights is meaningful for already established projects, but still must be treated like social contracts. Also, be careful not to create distortion in the community of assignment of copyright.

The state of the lecture using the slide can be seen from the following movie.

Corporate Open Source Anti-Patterns: Doing It Wrong - YouTube


Open source is very important both consumerally and side by side. The above points are not necessarily obeyed, and it is OK to change depending on the circumstances.