Project management lessons from the FreeDOS Project

<p>

A lot of people seem to think that open source is a magic solution to
project management and that open source projects will automatically
attract a large and healthy community of contributors and users who will
improve the software.  This, of course, is not the case.  In fact,
creating a successful open source project is a really major and
difficult effort.  You have to deliver an initial promise that people
find interesting, attract other people, then facilitate and lead the
community, etc.  You just have to look at all the failed projects on
SourceForge that never delivered any code to see that "open source" is
not a guarantee for success.

</p>

<p>

Even though project management is a key element of every open source
project, there are only few resources about this topic.  That's why I
always enjoy reading about the experience from open source project
leaders.  Jim Hall, the founder of the FreeDOS project, recently posted
a series of four articles which I find particularly interesting.

</p>

<p>

Here are links to the articles along with a quick summary:

</p>

<ul>

<li><a href =
"http://sourceforge.net/userapps/wordpress/jhall1/2009/11/02/open-source-and-free-software/">Free
and Open Source Software</a>: the first article just describes what free
software and open source are all about.  It also looks at Raymond's
model and compares the cathedral and the bazaar style of
development.</li>

<li><a href =
"http://sourceforge.net/userapps/wordpress/jhall1/2009/11/04/starting-open-source-software/">Starting
Open Source Software</a>: this article summarizes a number
of key lessons learned: every project needs a clear purpose (i.e. you
have to solve an actual problem); initial users of the software should
be recruited as developers; releases are important; and every project
needs an active coordinator or maintainer.</li>

<li><a href =
"http://sourceforge.net/userapps/wordpress/jhall1/2009/11/09/cultivating-open-source-software-2/">Cultivating
Open Source Software</a>: you need a web site; making the source code
availability in an easy way is important; documentation is often hard to
write but is vital; you need a bug tracking system and responding to bug
reports is important to attract good feedback.</li>

<li><a href =
"http://sourceforge.net/userapps/wordpress/jhall1/2009/11/18/transitions-in-open-source-software/">Transitions
in an open source software project</a>: finally, when you need to hand
over the project, make sure to communicate openly, arrange for your
replacement and stick around to ensure a successful hand over.</li>

</ul>

<p>

I really like these articles from Jim Hall since they contain a lot of
great insights that apply to other projects, so I suggest you check them
out!

</p>

<p>

(Originally published on <a href = "https://fossbazaar.org/">FOSSBazaar</a>)

</p>

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