Myths Open Source Developers Tell Ourselves

Some interesting points from this ONLamp article on Myths Open Source Developers Tell Ourselves

Publishing your Code Will Attract Many Skilled and Frequent Contributors
Myth: Publicly releasing open source code will attract flurries of patches and new contributors.
Reality: You’ll be lucky to hear from people merely using your code, much less those interested in modifying it.

Feature Freezes Help Stability
Myth: Stopping new development for weeks or months to fix bugs is the best way to produce stable, polished software.
Reality: Stopping new development for awhile to find and fix unknown bugs is fine. That’s only a part of writing good software.

The Best Way to Learn a Project is to Fix its Bugs and Read its Code
Myth: New developers interested in the project will best learn the project by fixing bugs and reading the source code.
Reality: Reading code is difficult. Fixing bugs is difficult and probably something you don’t want to do anyway. While giving someone unglamorous work is a good way to test his dedication, it relies on unstructured learning by osmosis.

Packaging Doesn’t Matter
Myth: Installation and configuration aren’t as important as making the source available.
Reality: If it takes too much work just to get the software working, many people will silently quit.

It’s Better to Start from Scratch
Myth: Bad or unappealing code or projects should be thrown away completely.
Reality: Solving the same simple problems again and again wastes time that could be applied to solving new, larger problems.

Programs Suck; Frameworks Rule!
Myth: It’s better to provide a framework for lots of people to solve lots of problems than to solve only one problem well.
Reality: It’s really hard to write a good framework unless you’re already using it to solve at least one real problem.

I’ll Do it Right *This* Time
Myth: Even though your previous code was buggy, undocumented, hard to maintain, or slow, your next attempt will be perfect.
Reality: If you weren’t disciplined then, why would you be disciplined now?

Warnings Are OK
Myth: Warnings are just warnings. They’re not errors and no one really cares about them.
Reality: Warnings can hide real problems, especially if you get used to them.

End Users Love Tracking CVS
Myth: Users don’t mind upgrading to the latest version from CVS for a bugfix or a long-awaited feature.
Reality: If it’s difficult for you to provide important bugfixes for previous releases, your CVS tree probably isn’t very stable.

Tagged with: General Open Source Web Development

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