What would you do if you coded a C++/OO cross-platform framework and realize its laying on your disk for too much due to no time?

Question

This project started as a development platform because i wanted to be able to write games for mobile devices, but also being able to run and debug the code on my desktop machine too (ie, the EPOC device emulator was so bad): the platforms it currently supports are:

• Window-desktop
• WinCE
• Symbian
• iPhone

The architecture it's quite complete with 16bit 565 video framebuffer, blitters, basic raster ops, software pixel shaders, audio mixer with shaders (dsp fx), basic input, a simple virtual file system... although this thing is at it's first write and so there are places where some refactoring would be needed. Everything has been abstracted away and the guiding principle are:

• mostly clean code, as if it was a book to just be read
• object-orientation, without sacrifying performances
• mobile centric

The idea was to open source it, but without being able to manage it, i doubt the software itself would benefit from this move.. Nevertheless, i myself have learned a lot from unmaintained projects.

So, thanking you in advance for reading all this... really, what would you do?

Answer 1

Throw it up on an open source website and attach a bunch of good keywords to help search engines find it. If someone's looking for it, they'll find it and be able to use it.

Answer 2

I would say that you should open source it.

If you do have the time, it may be helpful for other programmers who are interested in the project to know the status of the project, and what is next to do on the project. Writing a to do list may be helpful, or writing comments in the code may also help.

If you do not have the time to write up a to do list maybe somebody is willing to take the initiative on the project, find out what needs to be done.

Look at it a different way. The worst that can happen is that your work will go unnoticed, and your efforts will be lost. The best that can happen is that you will be recognized for having the foresight to start such a great project, and open sourcing it.

Answer 3

http://sourceforge.net

This allows you to set up as admin and manage the project.
Of course if somebody does not agree with you they can fork the project and start their own version but that's open source for you.

Answer 4

If you've put time and effort into it, don't let it die a quiet death. Instead share it under the license of your choice on a collaborative site. At the worst, you get nothing in return. At the best, other people like the idea and provide constructive feedback or code. Even better is if you get some time in the future to pick it back up.

Couple of good sites to post it on

1. codeplex
2. sorceforge

Answer 5

Put it up on github so we can all check it out.

Answer 6

Definitely, you should open source it, just make the same considerations you made on this question on a place that anybody can see...

Maybe someone will pick it up, or just learn from it