Developing opensource, getting people interested.

[Omirion]

I decided to take the insight of an admin here at PHPfreaks, and maybe ask around before i go diving in 50 feet water

So anyway. Does anyone have any experiance they like to share working with large scale (or small) open source projects?

 

I currently am thinking of trying to do something JS related i won't go into detail, but in short i have this thing that i think could be interesting and a can eather keep it for myself, or give it to the world in hopes it contributes in a positive way.

I prefer the second.

 

But generally how do you get started with opensource.

 

I've seen alot of projects on google.code get attention, also openHatch i think it was.

[gizmola]

It's a lot of work, but it can be gratifying and satisfy your desire to give something back to the world at large. 

 

Github also provides free hosting + git, and then there's good old sourceforge. 

 

The hosting is really the simplest part of it -- it's more writing it, creating documentation and examples, and dealing with bug reports and patches. 

 

There are plenty of places to promote your project starting with freshmeat, and communities that focus on the tech stack you're developing for.

 

 

[WebStyles]

I think it was the creator of hotmail who said something like "if a project seems useful to me, maybe it's useful to 10 million people".

 

If you have a good idea, people will follow, but a big percentage of success is how and where the product is marketed.