open-source.md

Open Source Projects: Thoughts, Preferences

Sometimes, especially in the realm of emerging technology, open source projects spring up before commercial projects do.

In general, I love exploring open source technology and although I realize that this is an unreasonable expectation given that open source software is often offered for free, I definitely appreciate software that "works". I much prefer using software that is irregularly updated but has gone through good quality control than software that has gone through less good quality control and is full of bugs.

As a writer and process-based thinker, documentation is another thing that I really appreciate.

Clear installation instructions are always appreciated as well as well-documented features and good API documentation.

When considering using an open source component in a stack, my main question is often not "is this the best tool for the job?" (among what might be a very long list of alternatives), but "is this project going to stick around and be stable?"

To answer that question, it's often worth looking at who's participating in the project. The backing of technology platforms, major tech vendors, bolsters my confidence significantly.

A red flag that crops up somewhat frequently is what has been termed "benevolent dictatorships" in which decision-making is decentralized to one individual or community input is discarded and devalued.

Collaborative projects that have a long-term stable vision are a good fit.

One misgiving I have about open source, having contributed to a number of projects and open sourcing a lot of my own thinking and work, is that it's inherently unsustainable in a world where everyone, including me, has to pay their rent in dollars.

Maybe for that reason, I very much like the idea of companies which have a strong SaaS product and a parallel open source offering that they offer to the community as a goodwill gesture or to encourage wider use and participation. I would regard this as almost the gold standard and the model of open source that I think is most sustainable. So projects that follow this model are ones that I really appreciate.