Developer Enthusiasm in Open Source
February 8th, 2007 by
Nola
Why is that a good deal of the software on most of the opensource repositories are rubbish?
Developers get excited about an idea, maybe even round up a few friends with grand plans of an opensource project. Perhaps its a hobby project, or a project at work. If they are lucky, they have a first release up … I think the main reason of this is NEED. If there are no improvements, no successive releases they probably don’t NEED the application.
For example, I wrote some Perl modules that imitate some of Rails HTML helpers. I had a Perl job, and had just come off a Rails project and found I kept wishing for these helper modules. Ahh, I’ll write some! I wrote them with almost the same parameters as the RAILS conterpar…I made several tests, wrote documentation, filled out all the forms for getting a PAUSE account on CPAN … and shortly thereafter… left that Perl job.. I never posted my module! I wasn’t using it…I didn’t need it anymore. I just didn’t feel like posting it. I had talked to some of the Perl framework developers to see if they would want it and nobody was interested. Now I know why when I was in the process of getting my module in acceptable shape, Andy Lester said to me, “Make sure its something YOU, as the author, will use!” … I think he knew this … software that is updated, documented, many releases… is used.
When I’m asked to look at software projects from source forge, I first look for the number of releases. Software is hardly perfect on its first release. Then I look at the homepage. If there’s not even a basic homepage with a description, screen shots, anything…. its probably not used heavily. Then I look at the forum or mailing list for any ignored pleas for help .. or security questions/warnings. If all these points of my analysis fail… I may not even bother downloading unless the description is compelling enough or this is the only project I can find that is close to what I am looking for. I’m not complaining, after all its free software and you get what you pay for!
Have you been guilty of putting up code and then abandoning it? Why?
How do you analyze using an open source project?
February 16th, 2007 at 5:04 pm
Finding good open source feels like finding a good doctor — you have to get a recommendation from someone, because using a directory is about as effective as using a dartboard.
If I’m looking for a module to do something specific, and nobody can recommend one, in addition to all the stuff you mention I’ll google the name to see who else is using it. I also search the archives of general language mailing lists, for example the Ruby list if it’s a Rails module.
If it’s an add-on to a popular package I’ll try searching the SANS newsletter archive for any past security risks (beware that site — lots of good info but they reeeeeally want to sell you training).