Producing Open Source Software

This book recommends several tried and trusted steps to help free software developers work together towards a common goal. Starting with basics of project management, "Producing Free Software" details specific tools used in open source and free software projects, including CVS and Subversion, IRC, bug tracking, and Wikis. Author Karl Fogel offers practical advice on how to set up and use these tools in combination with open mailing lists and archives. From his years of experience, Fogel also provides several chapters on the essentials of recruiting and motivating developers and gaining publicity for software projects.

In 1995, Karl Fogel co-founded Cyclic Software, a company offering commercial CVS support. In 1999 he added support for CVS anonymous read-only repository access, inaugurating a new standard for access to development sources in open source projects. That same year, he wrote "Open Source Development With CVS" (published by Coriolis), now in its third edition via Paraglyph Press.

Since early 2000, he has worked for CollabNet, Inc, managing the creation and development of Subversion, a version control system written from scratch by CollabNet and a team of open source volunteers, and meant to replace CVS as the de facto standard among open source projects. He also participates in various other open source projects as a module maintainer, patch contributor, and documentation writer.

Foreword

ix

Preface

xiii

Introduction

1

(16)

History

4

(10)

The Situation Today

14

(3)

Getting Started

17

(28)

First, Look Around

19

(1)

Starting from What You Have

20

(13)

Choosing a License and Applying It

33

(2)

Setting the Tone

35

(8)

Announcing

43

(2)

Technical Infrastructure

45

(42)

What a Project Needs

47

(1)

Mailing Lists

48

(12)

Version Control

60

(13)

Bug Tracker

73

(6)

IRC/Real-Time Chat Systems

79

(3)

Wikis

82

(2)

Web Site

84

(3)

Social and Political Infrastructure

87

(12)

Forkability

88

(1)

Benevolent Dictators

89

(1)

Consensus-Based Democracy

90

(7)

Writing It All Down

97

(2)

Money

99

(22)

Types of Involvement

101

(2)

Hire for the Long Term

103

(1)

Appear as Many, Not as One

104

(1)

Be Open About Your Motivations

105

(2)

Money Can't Buy You Love

107

(2)

Contracting

109

(4)

Funding Non-Programming Activities

113

(4)

Marketing

117

(4)

Communications

121

(42)

You Are What You Write

122

(10)

Avoiding Common Pitfalls

132

(7)

Difficult People

139

(3)

Handling Growth

142

(9)

No Conversations in the Bug Tracker

151

(2)

Publicity

153

(10)

Packaging, Releasing, and Daily Development

163

(30)

Release Numbering

164

(6)

Release Branches

170

(3)

Stabilizing a Release

173

(5)

Packaging

178

(7)

Testing and Releasing

185

(2)

Maintaining Multiple Release Lines

187

(2)

Releases and Daily Development

189

(4)

Managing Volunteers

193

(38)

Getting the Most Out of Volunteers

194

(14)

Share Management Tasks as Well as Technical Tasks

208

(8)

Transitions

216

(3)

Committers

219

(4)

Credit

223

(2)

Forks

225

(6)

Licenses, Copyrights, and Patents

231

(18)

Terminology

231

(4)

Aspects of Licenses

235

(1)

The GPL and License Compatibility

236

(2)

Choosing a License

238

(3)

Copyright Assignment and Ownership

241

(1)

Dual Licensing Schemes

242

(1)

Patents

243

(3)

Further Resources

246

(3)

A. Free Version Control Systems

249

(8)

B. Free Bug Trackers

257

(4)

C. Why Should I Care What Color the Bikeshed Is?

261

(8)

D. Example Instructions for Reporting Bugs

269

(4)

Index

273

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Producing Open Source Software

Summary

Author Biography

Table of Contents

Supplemental Materials

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Producing Open Source Software

Summary

Author Biography

Table of Contents

Supplemental Materials

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