OSS Projects Talk

Last Friday Miguel and I gave a talk to the Massachusetts Software Council about how to create a successful open source project. Our slides are here, and the audio is here. If you only have a little time, you might listen to the first ten minutes, in which I tell the story of what I think is the earliest example of an open source-style project. Maybe someone knows of an earlier example?

The audio cuts out briefly around slide 11, naturally when I’m making what I consider to be one of the most interesting points. The point I’m making is that you can’t just create an open source project and say “come help out!” and expect a flood of contributors. The smart move is to build what Tim O’Reilly calls an “architecture of participation.” Design the software so that there’s an easy and obvious place for people to contribute, in small, self-contained morsels. Projects that have done this successfully include xscreensaver, Eclipse with its plugin architecture, and the svg flags project.

At the end of the presentation, I talk about Hula a little bit.