Finding fellow open-source coders for various projects?

Github is an excellent place to make your project visible and let others contribute (project fork) without interfering with your work. Then you can merge whenever with whoever's fork. Github has wiki pages, source browsing and activity graphs. The site is fast too.

** UPDATE **

Github may not have "find project creators" features, but will certainly make your project visible. There is no magic behind it, and this is just like marketing a product; you have to make it visible and interesting. It doesn't have to be complete, but you need to have something to show before you get "inverstors" to join in. :) Also, even if a project has more than one creator, there should only one to lead the project, otherwise the project might not follow a straight line in development. At least this is true for embryo projects.

In my comments, I have mentioned that a project that could help in what you are asking would be a site kind of like StackExchange where people start up ideas about projects, where other could join in and talk about it; discussion could be categorized in programming language, project type, etc. Ideas could be voted up and commented, etc. etc.

I use github a lot, but it lacks a kind of forum to discuss projects and find coders. I've asked the github guys about it, and they are planning to add such a feature eventually, but it is quite low in their priority list.

static_rtti 2010-08-27 13:26:52

well... it's not in their high priority list because they are serving the basics. For docs, forums, and wikis, you can actually set a project's website where you can have a blog, forum, wiki, etc. Although I understand your question; a kind of (I said "kind of") stackoverflow, but for open projects. In an ideal world, it would be nice, but the fact is that people who are really interested in a project won't need such a tool; when they find an interesting project, they will contact the author(s) and contribute. Besides, you don't want just about anybody to be part of a good project...

Yanick Rochon 2010-08-27 13:33:52

I'm not sure if you really understand what I'm proposing. Instead of the classical "they find an interesting project, they will contact the author(s) and contribute. ", I would like to describe the idea, find interested people, design it with them, and *then* start writing code. That way they wouldn't be "contributors", but creators and designers of the project just like you. And the idea might be improved from the discussion, thus improving the design and avoiding costly refactorings of your code.

static_rtti 2010-08-27 13:38:56

I've tried that process once; we gathered in a laboratory at the university and started drawing diagrams in white boards, taking pictures, writing docs, etc. etc. In the end, nobody agreed about everything and the project died after people started to leave. Now, imagine this, but without knowing nor seeing anyone physically. My point is that, if you ever want a project to work, you have to have something that works FIRST (a demo), then only those agreeing with your idea will join, comment, contribute and expand the project's initial idea. Like I said, this is not an ideal world :)

Yanick Rochon 2010-08-27 13:44:42

You have a valid point! I still think that with good leadership, my system could work, but you definitely have a valid point :)

static_rtti 2010-08-27 13:58:10

I was thinking about that "online marketplace" you are suggesting and one big flaw comes into my mind; this would soon become a place where parasites would go and steal ideas instead of contribute to id. Like I said, this is not an ideal world and that kind of idea would just simply never work :)

Yanick Rochon 2010-08-28 14:37:58

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Finding fellow open-source coders for various projects?

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