[Discuss] suggestions on how to free code?

[Mark Woodward]

On 08/13/2012 10:30 PM, Eric Chadbourne wrote:
> Hi All,

Making code GPL is easy. Putting it on an open version control (github, 
sourceforge, etc)is easy. In short the "mechanics" of what you want to 
do is easy and well documented.

Two things in your email suggest it won't get a lot of following: "20 
different applications" and "too expensive." This is usually a 
indication the you are in a vertical market where the population of 
potential users/contributors is quite small. Even today most Windows 
developers have never been to source forge. The idea that someone in 
your field will look for an open source version of this tool is remote. 
The fact that there are 20 different app's to choose from may indicate 
that it is a problem that is reasonably solvable and more to the point, 
may be fun to solve and without needing a lot of coding infrastructure 
to support the function.

Creating the "community" is quite difficult. Assuming you can get the 
word out about your project (which isn't easy), it has to be something 
people want and written in such a way that people will want to use it 
instead of writing their own. It has to be more efficient to learn how 
to use your project than it is to write their own. Depending on what the 
app is, there is a "trust" issue, they'll need to reasonably believe it 
will work before they even download it to test it. They'll want the 
familiar configure/make paradigm, bells and whistles, docs, etc. It will 
need to be easy to configure and should have some examples so that they 
can see it work immediately, we are, after all, and impatient bunch. 
Just getting your system, what ever it is, to the point where it has a 
chance is a lot of work.

All in all, search github or sourceforge for projects, there are tons of 
them! Some really cool, but most, it seams, largely abandoned. My advice 
to you is to put it in GPL if you like, it costs nothing and *maybe* 
someone will benefit. However, there is no hard and fast way to create a 
viable community. Even with the best of projects its hard and unlikely.

> Where I work we needed some software.  We evaluated about 20 different
> applications, free and non-free.  They were either too expensive (I
> work at a non-profit) or just sucked.  So we rolled our own.  I just
> had my annual review and all I asked for was to make our app gplv3 and
> allow me to release it.  The boss doesn't mind.  So I'm tiding things
> up and will release before xmass.  We use this application to manage
> constituents daily.  I wrote it all.  Not the best code but works as
> advertised.
>
> My question is, how to release in a way that lays the foundation for a
> community?  I just read
> http://en.tldp.org/HOWTO/Software-Release-Practice-HOWTO/index.html
> and like it mucho.  Any other tips from BLU?
>
> Thanks,
> Eric
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