Presentation on one-man open source projects

1. Kirill Grouchnikov
PARTY OF ONE
SURVIVING A HOBBY OPEN SOURCE PROJECT

2. SOURCEFORGE.NET
Indexed projects 146.147
Have files 75.050 51%
Marked as released (*) 22.502 15%
* - status one of “production”, “stable”, “mature”

4. Develop Maintain Promote

5. DEVELOP

7. DEVELOP
 Tenets
 Features
 Release schedule

8. Buzzword vision
“[…] IS A HIGH PERFORMANCE, VASTLY
SCALABLE, EMBEDDABLE, INTERNET-CENTRIC
CLIENT / SERVER COMPUTING PLATFORM WITH
A BREAKTHROUGH ADAPTIVE RUNTIME
TECHNOLOGY.”

9. “IT MAKES SIMPLE THINGS EASY AND THE
HARD STUFF POSSIBLE, THE GOOD DESIGN
EASY AND THE BAD DIFFICULT”
─ FormLayout project by Karsten Lentzsch

10. FEATURES
Let’s talk about it later

11. RELEASE SCHEDULE ANTI-PATTERN
Release Date
0.7.0 Alpha 1 Jan 2007
0.6.5 Beta Sep 2005 11-14 months
0.6.0 Beta Oct 2004
0.5.5 Beta Jun 2004 4-6 months
0.5.0 Beta Jan 2004
0.4.5 Beta Nov 2003
0.4.0 Beta Sep 2003
0.3.0 Alpha Jul 2003
2-3 months
0.2.6 Alpha Apr 2003
0.2.4 Alpha Jan 2003
0.2.2 Alpha Oct 2002

12. RELEASE SCHEDULE
3.0
10 weeks – usual schedule
3.1
10 weeks – usual schedule
3.2
12 weeks – extra two weeks for code health
3.3
20 weeks – extra ten weeks for code health,
4.0 removing deprecated functionality and allowing
users to adapt

13. RELEASE SCHEDULE
3.0
10 weeks
3.1
52 weeks. 52*7 is 364 days.
10 weeks
3.2
12 weeks Take one day off to enjoy the life.
3.3 Get extra day off every four years!
20 weeks
4.0

14. RELEASE SCHEDULE
3.0
10 weeks
3.1 One major
10 weeks
3.2 52 weeks release per
12 weeks year
3.3
20 weeks
4.0

15. MAINTAIN

17. MAINTAIN
 Bugs
 Code health
 Task schedule

18. “THE USERS WHO CARE ENOUGH TO GIVE YOU
FEEDBACK DESERVE YOUR ATTENTION AND
RESPECT.”
─ Jeff Atwood, CodingHorror.com

19. PRIORITIES
This is what you usually see:
90% new features
10% bug fixes

20. PRIORITIES – IF YOU’RE LUCKY
new features
bug fixes
code health
documentation

21. PRIORITIES – WHAT IT SHOULD REALLY BE
bug fixes
code health
documentation
new features

22. NEW FEATURES OVER THE TIME
A new feature needs
to interact with every
existing one
internal
implementation
complexity
release release release release
1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3

23. WOULD BE NICE IF…
how do you do this?
release release release release release
1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 2.0

24. CODE HEALTH
 Internal refactoring
 Deprecation
 External refactoring

25. “WITHOUT PEOPLE PUSHING AGAINST YOUR
QUEST TO DO SOMETHING WORTH TALKING
ABOUT, IT'S UNLIKELY IT WOULD BE WORTH
THE JOURNEY.”
─ Seth Godin, sethgodin.typepad.com

26. CODE HEALTH
How much
stability you Sources of instability:
can risk •New features
•Internal rewrites
•Bug fixes
Start of RC Version
version release

27. TASK SCHEDULE
version 1.1
version 1.2
version 1.3

28. TASK SCHEDULE BREAKDOWN
Time Stage
0 weeks Development starts
2 weeks More realistic for dev start
6 weeks Core feature freeze
8 weeks User feature freeze
10 weeks Release candidate
12 weeks Release
13 weeks Stop backporting bug fixes

29. TASK SCHEDULE
rc rel
rc rel
0 2 3
0 2 3
Every bug fix
needs to be
done on two
branches

30. RESPECT THE USER FEEDBACK
Time Stage
0 weeks Development starts
2 weeks More realistic for dev start
6 weeks Core feature freeze
8 weeks User feature freeze
10 weeks Release candidate
12 weeks Release
13 weeks Stop backporting bug fixes

31. PROMOTE

33. PROMOTE
 Documentation
 Test applications
 Blog

34. DOCUMENTATION
Time Stage
0 weeks Development starts
2 weeks More realistic for dev start
6 weeks Core feature freeze
8 weeks User feature freeze
time to start release notes
10 weeks Release candidate
release notes in perfect shape
12 weeks Release
13 weeks Stop backporting bug fixes

35. “RATHER THAN HATING WASHING THE DISHES,
YOU JUST WASH THE DISHES.”
─ Garr Reynolds, Presentation Zen

36. BLOG
Do it

37. “THE RELEASE IS NOT OUT UNTIL YOU BLOG
ABOUT IT.”
─ Harald Fernengel, TrollTech

38. Develop Maintain Promote

39. MAKING MISTAKES
Is being the best a goal in itself?

40. ALL THAT'S NEEDED IS THE DESIRE TO BE
HEARD. THE WILL TO LEARN. AND THE
ABILITY TO SEE.
─ Scott McCloud, Understanding Comics

41. PICTURE CREDITS
Attribution-NonCommercial License
 Bridge – user “diebmx” on flickr.com
 Pavement growth – user “diebmx” on flickr.com
 Broken sign – user “diebmx” on flickr.com
 Teeming ladybugs – user “Thomas Hawk” on flickr.com
 Leaping dog – user “i am brad” on flickr.com
 Meerkats – user “814 carthage” on flickr.com
Attribution License
 Ants on a rope – user “wwarby” on flickr.com