Open Source Virgin - What steps to take?

Question

I'm thinking about releasing some of my PHP work as open source using one of the popular open-source licenses out there. I'd like to build a community around it and let contributors other than myself help grow the codebase.

For someone who has never released anything as open source before, what are some important things to consider when doing so? What important steps do you recommend I take? I want to make sure I have all my bases covered and go into this well informed. Would anyone with more experience be willing to share advice/experience/lessons learned?

Answer 1

This video may be able to answer some of your questions:

What's In It for Me? Benefits from Open Sourcing Code: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZtYJoatnHb8

Answer 2

See also: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/95710/how-do-you-promoteadvertiseevangelize-your-open-source-project

The big thing that comes to mind beyond what was in that other question, though, is that you need to define what this project is about. I'd be inclined to start a community with the core developer(s), and a few known users. Get them out there helping to evangelize your project, telling everyone else why it's so great, and how they can leverage what the project does for something.

If what you're doing is good (and I'm sure it is) - that community will grow through word of mouth.

Most of all: don't artificially 'limit' the applications of your project. Maybe you're building a CMS in APL. That's awesome. But don't get too focused on how the project should be applied: maybe you think it's for web sites, but others see an immediate use in product documentation management.

As your community gets going, it should become a self-supporting environment of users, contributors, and evangelists - as long as the project is maintained, and maintainable.

Answer 3

Make sure you build a proper website. I've written down what I think are the key features of any good website for a piece of software, open or otherwise.

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/36268/what-makes-a-good-website-for-an-open-source-project#36319

Answer 4

The only suggestion I can think of is keep your OSS license as open as you can. I know I personally try to avoid GPL licensed software due to the extreme Copy Left restrictions it has (anything I include it in automatically becomes GPL'ed). At the very least LGPL is the minimum license you should adopt but I personally prefer licensing my stuff under the MIT license (a lot of other PHP code is released under the new BSD license which is pretty much the same as the MIT license).

Answer 5

"Producing open source software" by Karl Fogel O'Reilly editor ISBN 0-596-00759-0

Excellent book, which talks about the technical side but also a lot about community building and project management.

If you do not like paper, it is on line.