Blog of Echothrust Solutions

Today, I came across a post (Open Source Start-Up: Blueprint for Success) which gave me some ideas that we could implement in the future in order to help our OpenSource project to succeed.

• Attracting Developers. Make contributors public and acknowledge their work. Even if some how their contribution embarrasses your current work. If someone got into the trouble to sent you patch he is obviously interested.
• Membership has its Privileges. Create a way to provide revenue, even if it is small, for the developers who gain access or contribute, based on the percentage of their contributions. Add AdSense on project pages and share the profits of the project with the developers. In-house developers will not take part in the share of the revenues.
• Building Legendary Software. Be clear about what are your major goals and find other successful projects with similar. Take example from other big projects Firefox, Linux etc, study what made them successful and emulate them.
• Growing your Community. In order for your community to grow beyond the initial enthusiasm you will have to keep your users motivated. The best way to do this is to keep the maintenance of your project up-to-date and soon users will share your enthusiasm and contribute towards a more successful project.
• Listen to Your Users - Always. This is not exactly as your users always are right. However no matter what your users ask, even if it sounds silly to you, allow your community to decide. Although the project started by your self, the moment it becomes OpenSource it belongs to everyone else as much as you. Always keep this mentality otherwise your community will soon disappear.

We hope you enjoyed the reading.