Open Source Projects - Beyond Code: A blueprint for scalable and sustainable open source projects

Guidance and insight on how to launch, run, and make an impact with your open source project.

Key Features

• Guidance on how and why to launch an open source project.
• Best practices and insights in running an open source project.
• Leveraging open source to advance your career.

Book Description

Open source is pervasive in our society, with millions of open source projects and hundreds starting daily. Open source is what is referred to as a "scratch your own itch" model, meaning that what drives forward a project is what contributors and maintainers want from it. We've seen many models for how to start and run open source projects, along with business models around these projects that have had economic impacts in the billions of dollars. Building on this knowledge, how can you best build a successful, scalable, and sustainable open source project? In this book, you will explore the full cycle of open source projects, from inception, through launch to a mature state, and then see how to sunset an open source project. Along the way, you will learn about the concepts of licensing, governance, community building, ecosystem management, and growing maintainers and contributors, as well as see how other open source projects have been successful or might have struggled in this area. The book will serve you both as a guide as well as a reference, and one that both those new to open source, as well as experienced maintainers, will find as a valuable resource. It will also help you grow a career in open source and showcase how your word will help you find new opportunities and stay ahead in developing the skills needed as technology evolves.

What you will learn

• What is open source and why is it valuable.
• How to start an open source project, explore the key considerations, and work to start an open source project in your organization.
• How to grow, support, and manage a vast community of developers and users.
• Build and maintain a mature and sustainable project, with considerations for downstream productization, outreach, and mass enabling users and developers.
• How to use open source as a portfolio to build your career.
• Understand when it's time to consider sunsetting a project and ensuring you are doing it in a responsible way.

Who This Book Is For

This book is for anyone interested in starting an open source project or currently maintaining an open source project. The book will be approachable to software developers, product managers, business leaders, and general enthusiasts of open source.

Table of Contents

1. The Whats and Whys of Open Source
2. What Makes a Good Open Source Project?
3. Open Source License and IP Management
4. Aligning the business value of open source for your employer
5. Governance and Hosting Models
6. Making Your Project Feel Welcoming
7. Growing Contributors to Maintainers
8. Dealing with Conflict
9. Handling growth
10. Commercial productization of open source
11. Using open source projects to grow careers
12. Marketing for open source
13. Transitioning leadership
14. Sunsetting an open source project

John Mertic is the director of program management for The Linux Foundation. Under his leadership, he has helped ASWF, ODPi, the Open Mainframe Project, and R Consortium accelerate open source innovation and transform industries. John had an open source career spanning two decades, both as a contributor to projects such as SugarCRM and PHP, and in open source leadership roles at SugarCRM, OW2, and OpenSocial. With an extensive open source background, he is a regular speaker at various Linux Foundation events and other industry trade shows each year. John is also an avid writer and has authored two books, The Definitive Guide to SugarCRM: Better Business Applications and Building on SugarCRM, as well as publishing articles on IBM developerWorks, Apple Developer Connection, and PHP Architect.