Making Your Code OSS-Appealing?

goldcd writes "A while back I wrote some pretty reasonable forum code, a PHPBB alternative. A few years down the line it's pretty stable, I've stopped tinkering with it, and it's standing up by itself. I have neither the time, inclination, nor inspiration to do anything more with it, but would very much like to give the code to the world to use and expand upon. Now I could just upload it as it is onto SourceForge, but currently it's very specific in its usage and I'd be ashamed of what 'proper' coders would think of my amateur offering — I'm afraid it would be laughed at and ignored. On the other hand, I don't want to waste hours of my own time perfecting it for people just to 'rip off' as is, and never contribute anything. My question is, what do you have to do to make your code 'OSS appealing?'"

Just let them come

[Anonymous Coward]

Post the code and let the people who want to clean it up clean it up. If people see potential in your existing code, that's what'll be done.

Re:

[cnettel]

Nah, I'm not so sure. At least put some work in the docs. A guide to the design/architecture and some simple howtos to use the system. If those are missing, people might never even realize whether there is anything to gain from cleaning up the code. Asymptotically, all worthwhile projects will be found and improved upon, but we do not have infinite time, nor an infinite number of monkey^H^H^H^H^H^Hcontributors.

Re:Just let them come

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree wholeheartedly. Most systems fail to gain popularity not based on their code quality, but on their documentation. The more documentation, the better - especially for PHP projects, where documentation tends to lead developers by the hand, often spoon-feeding them.

If there is guides on how to customise this, add things here, remove things from there, etc people will be more inclined to adopt the system.

When checking out any software, I always check for documentation, from the specific itty-gritty (like API references), to tutorials, blog postings and articles on the system. It means if have problems, I stand a chance of identifying a fix by doing a quick Google search, instead of unnecessarily trawling through code myself.

Re:Just let them come

[Savage-Rabbit]

I agree wholeheartedly. Most systems fail to gain popularity not based on their code quality, but on their documentation. The more documentation, the better.....

That is so true and it is also amazing how many developers have trouble understanding that. I'll pick a second rate solution over a faster/less bloated/better written one every time if it has superior documentation. Nothing pisses me off more than people whose idea of documentation is setting up a Wiki and having the users write the docu for them. Wiki's are nice, I use them, but properly written developer and user guides are better. The only thing that will make me rethink this policy is stability and security issues. When I can't get the software running, or in case of a software library, get a simple demo app coded in a reasonable time with the documentation on the project website I'll write the application/library off unless I have no alternative but to use it. If there is anything in the software developing world that needs fixing it's introducing more developers to various documentation tools like Javadoc, Doxygen, Visio, ROBODoc, Omnigraffle, .... the list goes on. User documentation is even simpler, just fire up OOo Writer, Pages, VI/Emacs if you are a hardcore developer or even, dare I suggest it.... it MS Word.

Re:

[DMUTPeregrine]

I find it somewhat sad that VI/EMACS would be associated with hardcore developers only. I don't use VI much, but EMACS is one of the most powerful editors for any kind of text around. And it is FREE!

Re:Just let them come

[vtcodger]

Sure EMACS is powerful. But that's almost irrelevant to the needs of program documentation. Mostly documentation authors don't need a lot of power. They need a modicum of communication ability, a basic text editor, and a willingness to do a not especially fun job.

(I'll pass on vi. If you can't say something nice ...)

Re:

[legirons]

Whereas a program which allows you to (a) insert formatted example code into your documents from the files themselves, and (b) run that example code and put the output into your document is the sort of area where the documentation system could be more powerful than a simple word processor.

Re:

[vtcodger]

Sure a powerful program documentation package could be (probably has) been developed. But before we try to run marathons, how about we try learning to crawl -- i.e. writing basic, comprehensible, accurate documentation in English or some other widely read modern language? (i.e. Not Japanese or Hungarian. Nothing wrong with Nihongo but Babelfish does amazing things when translating Japanese to English and probably vice versa. And it doesn't do Hungarian, Finnish, Urdu at all)

Re:

[AmiMoJo]

I agree with the parents. Firefox and Thunderbird are good examples of both sides of the coin. On the one hand, documentation for extensions is not too bad and there are loads of them. On the other hand, getting either project to compile on Windows is a nightmare, so people like me who just want to contribute a bit of code and not spend hours just building a, er, build environment don't bother.

Re:

[jschimpf]

I agree with this sub-thread. I've been on both sides of this as a user and as an author. I can tell there is not much more frustrating that wanting to use some piece of code (that does close to what you want) but being prevented from using because you cannot figure out how to change it and the author has no internal or external documentation. In effect you have to do the whole thing again and get inside his head to get to the point of changing it. At that point you usually bail and do your own kludge.

My Hat's off to you, sir!

[rts008]

Even though I did not ask this question (not even thought about it really), your answer got me to thinking about it from that angle, and various little projects I've messed around with and had fun with will now require some more work on my part. I don't see it as an inconvenience, but an oversight on my part that needs corrected.
Even if I could care less about anyone else being able to figure out what I was up to, the benefits for me alone are making the extra work on doc's desirable...I've lost stuff befor

Re:

[gmack]

also: Make the installation as easy as possible.. If I have to change 30 config files and assorted hopps I probably won't even bother to finish installing it let alone start looking at the code.

Don't forget the why!

[achurch]

Documenting how things work, from both a user's and a developer's perspective, is certainly important. But it's even more important to write down why your program works the way it does. Any reasonably skilled programmer can reconstruct the "how", given enough time--it's in the code, after all--but nobody can read your mind to determine "why" you chose a particular method of doing things.

Without the "why", another programmer may be hesitant to change your code, even if he sees a potentially better algorithm, because he won't know whether it's safe to do so: Did you use your algorithm on purpose, maybe due to some aspect of the program structure that requires it? Does the rest of your program assume that the function will operate in a particular way? (I'm not going to turn this into a lecture on encapsulation or anything; this is just an example of why the "why" is important.) It's okay if your reasoning is just "it's the only thing that occurred to me" or "I don't like doing this kind of routine so I just rushed through it", and in fact, that sort of note will help others fill in any holes in your design.

As for the code itself, don't worry! Everybody's gone through more or less the same learning process, so most people will be perfectly understanding, no matter how your code looks. (Of course, there are always those who leave snide comments [google.com], but like playground name-callers, the best thing to do is just take them in stride [slashdot.org].)

Re:Just let them come

[Psiren]

I agree. I was somewhat worried when I put my first code out there, but once you take the plunge it's really not that bad. I remember a guy mailing me with a patch to replace a really dumb subroutine (this was a Perl script) with a one liner. He was very polite and helpful about it, considering how awful it must have looked to him. And he took the time to submit the patch, which makes all the difference.

Just do it. It's highly unlikely anyone will laugh at you. Anyone that has spent time to read through your code is unlikely to be so juvenile as to mail you just to point out how bad it is.

Of course, it may be ignored by all but a few people. Some of my stuff certainly has been. But those few people that have used it have mailed me to say how helpful it has been to them. Even if you just help one person, thats one person more than if you'd left it sitting on your hard drive. Getting that single thank you mail can really give you the warm fuzzies.

It's also interesting to see where it might end up being used. I've had people that use my stuff at NASA, the Pentagon and even Disney. Have code, will travel! :)

Re:Just let them come

[Ash Vince]

Just do it. It's highly unlikely anyone will laugh at you. Anyone that has spent time to read through your code is unlikely to be so juvenile as to mail you just to point out how bad it is.

Actually they might point out how bad it is, but they might point it out in helpful way that helped to make you a better coder. I have written an awful lot of shit code in my time, but I very grateful to the people who have given me constructive advice on how to improve it in future.

Re:Just let them come

[Psiren]

Absolutely. Nothing wrong with constructive criticism. I was just trying to say that anyone that mails you to tell you your code is shit without offering any helpful advice is at best a juvenile arsehole and should just be ignored.

Re:

[Ash Vince]

I was just trying to say that anyone that mails you to tell you your code is shit without offering any helpful advice is at best a juvenile arsehole and should just be ignored.

No, they should not be ignored. Instead try telling them how completely unhelpful they are being are ask them to be more constructive in future. If everyone tells them this they might eventually listen and grow up.

It seems to be working on me :)

Re:

[garett_spencley]

>> "I was just trying to say that anyone that mails you to tell you your code is shit without offering any helpful advice is at best a juvenile arsehole and should just be ignored."

"> No, they should not be ignored. Instead try telling them how completely unhelpful they are being are ask them to be more constructive in future. If everyone tells them this they might eventually listen and grow up.

It seems to be working on me :)"

You are a juvenile arsehole, who is copmletely unhelpful. In the future,

Re:

[Ash Vince]

Always nice to come across someone with a sense of humour as fucked up as my own :)

Re:

[mackyrae]

An example of this would be me talking to a kid in my class the other day about our previous homework assignment. I wrote a complicated loop that did all kinds of checks while randomly generating numbers to shuffle but use only once each item in an array (and ignore it but mark it used if it had certain properties while counting how many items got used to make sure they all got done). He used an array list and Collections.shuffle(). Now I know better for next time.

Re:

[ClassMyAss]

I wrote a complicated loop that did ...[snip - a whole bunch of stuff]. He used an array list and Collections.shuffle(). Now I know better for next time.

I don't know about that, in my experience anything that is built in to Java is probably best rewritten anyways, at least if you care at all about how fast your stuff runs (I'm a simulation weenie, so to be fair, my POV may be biased too far in favor of speed than the average programmer, which of course does make one wonder why I ever decided to use Java for

Also, it can't be that bad

[einhverfr]

Note that there is a *lot* of totally unmaintainable crap out there under open source licenses (I will admit to a few earlier projects which fall under that category-- I waked away from them for that reason). If you think your code may be bad, I can pretty much guarantee I have released worse code than you a number of years ago :-)

Note that, in a form of poetic justice, I am not thrown into a system where I am working on refactoring and rewriting someone else's total f%$#ing unmaintainable mess (and it is

Crowded

[shmlco]

I think it also depends how "crowded" that space is, in that if there's already a ton of decent to excellent forum packages out there, why dilute the space even further by posting your own?

One of the strengths of F/OSS is that there are usually a lot of solutions to any given problem. One of the major weaknesses is that often there are too many solutions to a given problem, with the end result being that there are too few contributors spread across too many projects.

You nearly had me...

[fyoder]

I've had people that use my stuff at NASA, the Pentagon and even Disney.

Until that quote I was thinking, 'maybe I should put my shite up on sourceforge'. NASA would be cool, but... I suppose the image in the mind is of one's code being useful to fellow geeks with similar liberal leaning mind set, but so far as I know there isn't an IPL (Ideologically Pure) license. Nothing stopping even Microsoft from using the GPL, other than the fact that they break out in hives at the mere thought.

Re:

[FLEB]

Just as free speech can be an enabler for the distasteful, free code can also be an enabler for the distasteful. If you want the benefits of control, opt for control-- use a permission-based license. However, if you want freedom, understand and accept the lack of control that is freedom's byproduct. And, yes, I understand that one can write a license that prohibits distasteful uses of ones tools, and that is (and should be) in a writer's power. But to my mind, to place a "morally restricted" license under t

Re:

[hedwards]

For the most part, if the code is well commented, with proper use of whitespace, that is all that is really important. It's pretty much a given that the program as a whole could be done in a different way, perhaps even more efficiently, but even if the OP hasn't spent a long time developing the algorithms to be the bets possible, there's going to be somebody out there that can tweak things to work better.

Or in other words, forget about it, if it is truly bad, people just won't work on it, and it'll die the

Re:Just let them come

[Antique Geekmeister]

Or better yet, find a more popular PHPBB tool and send the authors a note saying "I did these useful things, do you want them?", and encourage them to merge in the features or make the customization easily available. This works very well for Webmin.

Re:

[FreeKill]

I agree. I think all of us THINK that people will jump on us and laugh at us (or just plain be overly critical) of work we've done, but in my experience that is not really the case at all. The type of people who are taking the time to go through OSS projects and actually understand what makes them tick are the same people who realize that not all programming projects get to be well thought out designs from day one...If your project is worthwhile continuing, I say put it out there and I think you'll be surpr

Re:

[FLEB]

Good point... I imagine if you are the kind of person that picks through and jumps into any large amount of OSS source, you've seen plenty enough crap code in your time.

Re:

[cshark]

They're going to laugh at you. They're going to mock you. They're going to call you every name in the book, regardless as to what your code looks like, or how well it works. People suck. People who believe they're entitled to unconditional support on OSS projects suck even worse. You'll never hear from the thousands of people that like your code, because it works... most of the time... on most servers... for most people. It's easy to get disheartened with it, very easy. The only time you'll ever get a t

Well

[SpacePunk]

Considering the majority of OSS code, if I were to release any of my code, I'd have to make it more amateurish.

Don't worry about it. There are those that will like it, those that won't, but they'll all cream their star wars underoos because it's free (as in beer).

Re:Well

[rucs_hack]

I released my first OSS project as a horrifically badly organised mess of dissertation code. I got feedback from some domain specialists and better coders, and the codebase got better.

Now its a mature project with a very specialised user base, but its provided me with more fun then I ever imagined.

Code is never finished though.

Incidentally, I'd have replied to the main article, but for me there was no reply button, don't know why.

Reply Button

[Anonymous Coward]

The reply button is on that annoying little floating widget to the left (or above comments, if you press the button with the arrow point up).

Not the best visibility, though, admittedly.

Re:

[jc42]

I'd have replied to the main article, but for me there was no reply button, don't know why.

The reply button is on that annoying little floating widget to the left .../blockquote
When that "Web 2.0" stuff was introduced to /., I found that installing NoScript in firefox or seamonkey did a very effective job of defeating them and making /. easy to use again.

Blocking all images from slashdot.org also helps. None of the pictures here add anything to the discussions anyway, so why slow down page loads with them

Re:

[Reality Master 101]

Considering the majority of OSS code, if I were to release any of my code, I'd have to make it more amateurish.

People moderated this funny, but I was going to say the same thing. Much of OSS software is *horrible*. My favorite whipping boy is 'ssh'. What a pile of dog-poo that code is, and it's a critical application!

If this guy releases his code, he will have lots of company. Very few people seem to care about making pretty, well organized, well commented code.

Proven solution to making your code look pro ...

[tomhudson]

I'd be ashamed of what 'proper' coders would think of my amateur offering -- I'm afraid it would be laughed at and ignored

Just cut-n-paste the following lines multiple times in each source file ...

// hack for f*cking Internet Explorer css screw-up

// g** d*** MicroSh*t - got to fix this next section sometime

// WTF? Bug only in IE, on alternate Tuesdays, in months with an "R" in them!!!

// Okay - this works fine in Opera, Moz, Safari - fuck IE. Let a MicroSerf fix it, or fix their ^$%! browser!!!

Let's talk about Juvenile...

[mcrbids]

My very first contribution to the OSS community can be found at PHPBuilder. [phpbuilder.com] Notice that the login names match?

Anyway, take a look at the first snippet if you want to see truly simple, juvenile code. No error checking, etc. Except that it solved a need, and somebody else who was (at the time) more developed than I, took my stupid little proof of concept and turned it into something a little more robust. And so have a few other people.

I don't recall anybody ever criticizing the simplicity and the juvenile na

Nothing

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, I started in on a comment on this issue, but then I realized I was drunk and babbling on about some shit so fuck it...I've hit AC, and I'll just tell you to stop being self concious and release your code, open source isn't supposed to be a judgmental thing, release what you have and if there are improvements to be made take them as constructive criticism and learn from it.

Re:

[babbling]

Exactly. The most important thing is that the source code is there, not that it is actually good. Once the source code is there, other people can help evolve it.

Crap source code is better than no source code.

as gandhi said

[User 956]

I'm afraid it would be laughed at and ignored.

I think you have that backwards. First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.

Re:

[Tim C]

Interesting. What exactly does that over-used quote have to do with the discussion at hand though?

Re:

[hasbeard]

I think he was making a joke. Should have been modded funny.

You've got it all wrong

[Rix]

First you get the sugar, then you get the power, then you get the women.

Re:

[bky1701]

Unless the women is rich and powerful, then it may work the other way around. And what happens if you are a women? *Notices domain* Oops, never mind. :)

Release.

[srothroc]

Well, you could just release it as-is and see if anyone's interested.

Alternatively, you could go through and write up some documentation so that even if your code is messy and/or idiosyncratic, other people can find their way around with the help of the documentation. If they don't like the way things are set up, or if things are inefficient, they can fix it on their own -- isn't that a part of what OSS is about?

Re:

[snoyberg]

And as an added bonus, if you take the time to document, then even if no one else ever downloads it, it will be a lot easier for *you* to work on it in the future

Release it anonymously

[Colin Smith]

Problem solved.

 

Make it a needed product.

[webmaster404]

If its a needed product, and it has decent enough code, it will be accepted. For example, Linux is loaded with: Text Editors, IDEs, Media Players, Browsers based on the Gecko engine, simple rip-offs of games. Its the niche products that will survive, although there might not be 100 developers on it, it will be used by those that need it. The worst that will happen is its ignored, generally if theres a need for a program no one is going to flame you for bad code, they will either live with it, help you with it or privately fix it themselves. The reason most OSS projects don't succeed is because they end up falling into the "monopolies" (Not abusive monopolies that of the MS world but 1 de-facto standard) of the OSS world, for example, vi, emacs and somewhat nano are the only terminal based text editors that will be used by the majority of users, so whenever someone else comes up with one, its largely ignored, but things that put a "friendly" GUI on a common CLI program (Such as Synaptic for apt-get) it is usually appreciated, but bottom line, if it does something nothing else does, and does it better it will be accepted, if not then it will be largely ignored, you won't have people yelling at poorly documented code it will just be silently ignored.

Do you see a sign that says "dead code storage"?

[ameoba]

If you don't want to put any more work into it, it's effectively dead. OSS isn't just about giving away the source, it's also about allowing other people to contribute - simply posting it on SF.net and walking away does nothing if you're not willing to review submissions, process bug reports and/or bring people into the project.

Re:Do you see a sign that says "dead code storage"

[Anonymous Coward]

One man's trash is another's treasure. Let the user frantically searching for exactly your code on SF.net decide if it is worth something or not, not some flippant opinion here. Even if it the project is no longer maintained, it's not dead, it's just coasting. It's only dead if you never let it out into the world and then one day the hard drive goes silent.
Any who cares if people leech it and never give anything back? By a little act you just made someone's day.
Rate of change is a poor metric of project health anyway. Small robust mature bits of code may stay the same for years but are used by thousands every day.

-- AC as usual terminal HD catastrophically turned to metallic powder a few days back

Re:

[xenocide2]

The question was not how to make the code available, any idiot can put the code on SF or Google's code hosting. It was about making it OSS appealing. Dead upstreams aren't appealing, with good cause. Nobody knows the code better than the author, and for something user centric and internet enabled like a phpBB replacement (itself already a security nightmare), you want someone to be watching over the code and accepting security patches at the least.

And SF.net provides little means to determine whether code i

Re:

[Jeff DeMaagd]

I had had a library of specific types of math operations that I posted somewhere, I think on FreshMeat, where I did get some feedback from at least two people that used it in their own projects, although I was never able to finish the project for which I made the the library.

Re:

[Arethan]

I would have to agree with this stance whole heartedly. I wrote a little bastard love child utility [sourceforge.net] for Windows C++ coders, and the code itself is written in .NET because I was feeling especially lazy that day. I've since had a few people download it, most say they liked it, and only one person mentioned that I could probably make it run faster if I used a DLL from the Wine project instead of invoking the Visual Studio tools and parsing their results.

The main point being, this was a "throw away" application

It works?

[fishbowl]

If it works, don't be ashamed of it.

It you planned it, and then executed the plan to completion, there's nothing "amateurish" about that. This is one
*definition* of professional work.

Nobody would care, most likely.

[Anonymous Coward]

I make video games [allegro.cc] and release them under the GPL. Hardly anybody cares. There are plenty of BB programs out there already. The world doesn't need another one. Same goes for my video games.

I also make music [archive.org] and release it for free. Hardly anybody cares, because there's plenty of "free" music out there anyways.

If you don't think that your code is really all that grand, just quietly release it and hope it somehow finds a place in someone's heart. The few comments you get about it are still nice to have.

Re:

[DaleGlass]

For games, IMO, the question is not so much about the code, but about the polish. To be honest, your games don't look like something that'd make me run and download them. That doesn't mean there aren't promising open source games, it's just that writing a good game is HARD. What you should do is teaming up with a good artist. Good code + decent graphics + playability = you're 90% there.

Small games I liked:

Closed source: Starscape, Lugaru.
Open source: Scorched 3D, Tux Racer (IMO the proof of that it's possib

Re:

[David Gerard]

The whole reason I'm running Ubuntu is that my wife played Frozen Bubble at a friend's house and wanted it on her laptop at home. The whole reason!

Release it then...

[croftj]

As I see it, if you want to make it available, you have to risk the luaghter and all. Either that or don't write armature looking code in the first place.

With that said, I would release as is and work on cleaning it up. If you don't want to make that effort, if it offers decent enough features someone will start the effort of cleaning it up. Otherwise, it will do like 1000s of other projects on Sourceforge and wither away, most likely deservedly.

Don't bother

[Bloater]

> I have neither the time, inclination, nor inspiration to do anything more with it

Don't bother uploading it. Without its primary developer being involved, unless you've got some users with a real care that they can keep using it *and* that it improves, and who are also skilled PHP dev's (enough to read through and understand somebody else's code on the timescale they need modifications done) nobody is going to pick up your code.

Re:

[Anthony Boyd]

I have neither the time, inclination, nor inspiration to do anything more with it

Don't bother uploading it. Without its primary developer being involved, unless you've got some users with a real care that they can keep using it *and* that it improves, and who are also skilled PHP dev's (enough to read through and understand somebody else's code on the timescale they need modifications done) nobody is going to pick up your code.

Don't listen to him, goldcd. Nothing is inevitable. I have picked up a number

OK

[goldcd]

Maybe I didn't put that quite right.
I spent a year or so fire-fighting bugs and bolting on some superfluous Bells and Whistles, but basically it now does what I'd wanted it to do from the start.
Now the functionality is there, the next step would be to convert it from a PoC to a proper product - i.e. re-write all the code from scratch. It's this bit thats not very inspirational, load of work to get something that appears to be the same from the outside. Wouldn't mind doing it if it would be of use to other

Re:

[Bloater]

You could post it and hang around to see if anybody wants to use it. If you (the primary dev) are still there to help with things, fix bugs, add features, clean things things up, etc, there is a very good chance you'll get users. If you carry on for 6mo to 1yr then your user base might well pick up development. But you said you didn't want to do any more work on it and that's a death sentence for software with no users yet. As another poster pointed out, modules to enhance a well-used product may well be pi

Re:

[Bloater]

Will you pick up the code if he posts it? Why or Why not? How well does that tally with my prediction and will other people be different?

just what we need

[pbhj]

There's a lack of phpbb like systems after all ... release it immediately!

@:0)>

Everyone has pet projects .. thing is that systems like this take time to document, understand and integrate. At the end of the day does your system add anything to the gamut of CMS (see eg http://www.opensourcecms.com/ [opensourcecms.com]) - if not why release it? [that's a genuine question, I'm sure there are valid reasons]

If it does add something, a new way to handle captchas, cheaper DB access, better CSS templating or whatever then arguably

Calm your Ego.

[jellomizer]

While there are a lot of people willing to criticize your coding including yourself. Very few people write code and when they look back at in a year or so go what the heck was I thinking! Sure it works but what was I thinking I could have done this much simpler.

That is part of gaining experience. When a problem is hard one year the next it becomes common practice. I use to be worried about things like this and looking good to other programmers. But after spending a lot of time with other peoples code, mu

Re:

[Wordplay]

The thing about standards is that you're truly expert when you know how to break them usefully. We tell everyone not to do those things so that people who would horribly misuse them reflexively stay away. Generally, the point where they won't horribly misuse such features is right around the point where they start to realize there are legitimate uses for them.

There's no excuse for crappy comments, though. Takes the same amount of time to write a good one as a bad one.

Re:

[Zspdude]

Boy, I hope this is sarcasm. Because if it is, it's really elegant.

But I quiver in terror at the possibility that the parent is serious, so I'll bite. Simply because the parent is SO wrong that I can't risk it.

For a big project this could be a major problem.

Sorry to be abrupt, but... No. For a big project, coding in the parent-specified manner is a major problem. Lax coding style may make personal/small projects simpler and easier to implement, but it doesn't scale.
Code that "does the job best" is code that is robust, extensible, and maintainable. In a

Dont want it 'ripped off'?

[nurb432]

Then you dont want to release it to the world as OSS. That is the nature of the game.

Id not worry about being made fun of either, 90% of the 'coders' out there are probably worse. Your stuff runs and does what it should, be proud of that.

Re:

[someone1234]

Very few people would be content if their work is ripped off.
Even the BSD folks seem to want something in exchange of their code.
This is not necessarily money, most people are happy with patches or simply need attribution.

Re:

[nurb432]

Well, then dont relase your code.

I'm not saying that they may not want something in return, but if you relase it pure OSS, you take that chance. And, more then likely someone will take you up on it.

Re:

[someone1234]

Well, if a proprietary software companies don't want people crack their software they shouldn't release at all?
If RIAA doesn't want their music ripped and shared, they shouldn't issue CDs at all?
The copyright law should defend FOSS stuff just as much as it defends the above.

Re:

[nurb432]

At least with closed source you can have the reasonable expectation noone is going to reuse your code. And if they do you currently have the law on your side.

If you release your code OSS style, you have the reasonable expectation that someone is going to reuse parts of it and not contribute back to you. And if they do, they currently have the law on their side.

I really see a difference in the 2 distribution methods..

Nah

[someone1234]

There already have been GPL related lawsuits where a breacher was forced to reveal source.
The only difference is that many FOSS developers couldn't afford a lawsuit.
But, that is not because of open or closed source. Stacker couldn't afford a lawsuit against M$ either.

Re:

[Shados]

I don't think the poster meant they didn't want it ripped off. What they didn't want, was to spend time making it "contributor friendly", only to have people download it but never look at the code, in which case they might as well release it as is.

Just release it

[Eravnrekaree]

Just release the code, and let people decide whether or not to use it or clean it up. Do not be embarrassed about the amatuer code. You can provide it in an as-is condition with a disclaimer that you will not be doing any more work on this code and if people want to improve it, they are free to do so themselves. I would say releasing the code in an imperfect state is better than not releasing it at all. It can't hurt anything, if you provide the proper warnings about its state.

A PHPBB alternative?

[wytcld]

Here's the question: Did you know what you were doing in terms of security. PHPBB not only has had a terrible security track record, but when you find significant security flaws (I have) they don't even want to hear about them. This isn't to say they haven't fixed their worst security lapses - they've had little choice once the fire gets hot. But they are far, far from proactive about heading off new ones.

So if you have something secure, that's a decent subset of PHPBB's functionality, not too ugly (PHPBB isn't much in the beauty contest category anyhow), and with an efficient-enough way for moderators to deal with comment spam and Russian spammer registrations (in the PHPBB instance I still run, I've rolled my own extensions to handle this since what's built in is just too damn inefficient) ... if you've got that stuff sussed, there are plenty of people who'd take what you've started with and extend it. PHPBB is a main reason the PHP people have asked other groups to stop putting "PHP" in the names of their projects; gives the whole language a bad rep.

Re:

[owlstead]

If I tried the forum software (come on guys, just hit the web page of the submitter) it says that I've chosen an already existing password (binky). After that it says that the user already exists (also binky). I don't think this will be a great product for security, somehow. Unless the author makes it really clear what the advantages are over other products the software won't matter. I advise the author to first show the software to friends and improve the software before throwing it in the public domain.

as long as it works....

[3seas]

...being ugly might just help protect it from stupid software patents.....

Perhaps rethink the non-contributing users

[mr_mischief]

There are lots of established forum packages out there, and most people will use what they know or what Fantastico includes on their cheap web hosting. The way to get known isn't to take up space on SF.net and never get your code downloaded.

What you want to do if your software is to be debugged and iterated into newer versions is for people to use it. If it's powering some sites that people like, they'll consider it for their own sites. If people are using it, someone will invest some time in fixing issues with it.

Nobody wants to work with your code if there's no userbase. They can start from scratch themselves for that. If they want to work on something that's got user feedback, there are plenty of people using PHPBB, Postnuke, PHPNuke, miniBB, punBB, and more. Hell, would you ever have heard of Slashcode or Everything if some sites weren't using them?

If your code takes a different approach to something that makes a difference on the front end or is more scalable than the existing solutions then that's what interests users and developers. Implementing the same features in a slightly different but equivalent way on the back end just isn't important to anyone. Better security, a cleaner plug-in/module interface, better performance on the same system, easier administration, more options, simpler customization of layouts and colors, broader database support, and better docs are big things. Doing a merge sort instead of a quicksort when sorting your posts just isn't.

In short, differentiate your offering, get people to use it, and let your userbase decide what needs to be improved. Get someone involved who's going to be responsive to implement changes as needed so the users don't all migrate away. That's how you build a developer community around a project -- by making the developers care because they can see their work doing something.

post it up anyway, with disclaimer

[smash]

... don't be ashamed of it, acknowledge that there are areas to be fixed, and see how it goes.

If there's any good points to the project, it will either survive, or be integrated into something else, either way software (on the whole) will progress.

Hiding it away never to see the light of day benefits no one...

Also: Let us TRY the software, if possible

[ivi]

If this system is still "standing up"
you might give folks a quick preview,
eg, by opening it to demo access...?

Actually

[goldcd]

an excellent idea, thankyou.
Think what I shall do is take the existing site (bobpitch.com) and try and re-write it nicely (well fix the stuff I know is very wrong). As code comes out the other end I can bolt it onto the demo system. Hopefully this'll let people see what it's supposed to be doing and allows them to make the decision of whether or not they're interested very quickly.
Thanks again.

Give me a break

[smilindog2000]

Have you seen the OSS out there? If you're worried about how your code will look, obviously, you haven't looked at what's out there. Unless your code is going to come alive on it's own, creep out of the computer, and strangle me in my sleep, it cannot possibly be the worst code I've read. Get over it, and post it :-)

Licensing?

[sumdumass]

I would just release it with the comment about some stuff you did when learning and now you don't have time to mess with it but hope someone can use it. Sort of what you posted in the article submission but a little more compressed.

But something you should look into is the license you would like to release it under. And I mean look carefully. If you go the GPLv3 route, you are basically certifying it to be patent free or if there are patents that everyone has a license to use it. This is mostly important for plausible deniable-ility which probably won't get you out of trouble if something is actually in the code, but it goes a long way to lessening some of the ramifications. On the other hand, if you are certifying it by the requirements in the GPLv3, you loose that innocent look. For me, this would be a no go because I'm not taking the fall for something I don't care enough about to research. I would use the GPLv2 and maybe let someone else take it to v3 with the or later versions. The only question there is would you agree with later versions of the GPL. And that is something you will have to look into yourself.

So anyways, it doesn't really matter which license you place it under. As long as you understand the implications of those licenses along with the attempted goal of them. It sounds like a BSD license isn't going to be good for you (people just to 'rip off' as is, and never contribute anything.). But at least understand what you are getting into with the licenses and make an informed decision over them.

post it for SkyNet

[mkcmkc]

I'd say post it, with a description including the caveats you just gave. Even if no one is interested now, sometime in the next 100 years or so, computers will learn or be taught (depending on your point of view) how to program, and having a nice, big corpus of Open Source software to learn from will be useful in accelerating that process. Mike

someone might need a small bit

[pruss]

It's worth noting that if you post the code, it will get into Open Source code search engines, and then someone searching for, say, a particular subroutine, or a newbie trying to figure out how to do something (perhaps something very simple), will be able to benefit and either use or learn from the code.

I've posted a lot of very messy code that does various Palm-related things. I get a lot more downloads of binaries than source typically, but nobody's complained that the code is messy, ugly or whatever. It's a gift horse, after all, and in my experience everybody understands that. Put a disclaimer about the code being messy if you like.

My advice is: Swallow your pride and post it. Nobody loses (unless you can make some money from its staying closed), and someone might gain.

Project Management

[mikeplokta]

It's about 1% about how good the code is and 99% about how good you are as a distributed project manager, so I'd stop worrying about the code and start working on your project management skills. If you don't want or plan to be a project manager, then your code is going nowhere if and when you release it, no matter how good and useful it may be.

Re:

[wodelltech]

"distributed project manager"... I've managed projects with remote developers, but I suppose with OSS projects, all of your team might be remote. Do you know of any good books or references that discuss distributed management? I'm thinking specifically about communicating and planning. I suppose the control piece is wielded by whomever handles merges. I also wonder what the largest, single OSS projects is. Linux kernel?

Never wait

[Square Snow Man]

Release early, release often if you want other people to get involved, if you just write everything yourself and release it afterwards i don't think many people would really care unless it is a really interesting project. The website you are going to host your source code doesnt really matter (that is atleast what i think, i can't think of any good reasons why one site would attract more developers then the other), so you might aswell put it on sourceforge or freshmeat. After using some search engines i fo

Announce It

[Evets]

I follow plenty of other people here when I say just release it. I personally have quite a bit of half-written software that had potential at one point but has gone by the wayside because I never released it. It's easy to get caught up in self doubt or waiting until you can clean up the code and add a few comments.

Just F'ing do it, and announce it to a related community. If it's a phpBB alternative, announce it to their community. Don't spam, but just posting something like - I like phpBB, but I saw a few drawbacks so I decided to get my own thing going, if you are interested check it out. Don't get into arguments, and make it a point that you aren't spamming, just passing on the link and the code to those that might be interested.

From there, just keep doing your own thing. If it gets to a point where you think it really has potential consider spending some money doing a little bit of advertising - nothing huge, but a few adsense ads or similar in webmaster forum admin communities.

If you really want to get people to try your software and use it, be sure that it has an easy install and basic system requirements. WordPress' 3 minute, 1-click install was a marketing dream - especially considering how much of a hassle their competitors were to get installed when they first got started.

Also - if you can, offer binaries or a preconfigured download for common installations. Or maybe just a few sample configuration files that take you beyond a no-frills install. The easier it is to try a piece of software, the more likely people will be to try it out.

Re:

[argent]

That's my take too. I've had dozens of projects out there at various times, some get a lot of use, some don't, but even one patch is worth more than the effort of putting it up. And don't worry about someone "leeching" it... what have you lost if they do? Nothing you would have had if you'd just kept quiet about the code.

Apparently code quality is not a factor

[porneL]

Whenever you think your code needs cleaning up, just look at osCommerce.

Use != Lechery

[SavvyPlayer]

I don't want to waste hours of my own time perfecting it for people just to 'rip off' as is, and never contribute anything.

Contribution to the public domain is first and foremost a civic responsibility, whether it be in the form of building a playground, healthcare, scientific research, or software design & development. It is an act of charity that one performs with the hope and expectation that it will benefit the community. Whether or not the community will volunteer its efforts to further develop s

Lechery?

[argent]

And what's wrong with a little lechery, anyway? And what does sexual excitement have to do with OSS? You didn't that that "Sex, Drugs, and UNIX" line seriously, did you?

The underlying premise is all wrong

[fzammett]

You have entirely the wrong mindset by just asking these questions. Open-source is actually very simple:

1. Does the code you wrote server a useful purpose for YOU? Is it something that solved a particular use case FOR YOU?
2. If yes, then release it. Period, end of story.

I used to be concerned with how my code looked to others, of trying to come up with the "next great OSS project" that everyone would get onboard with. Then I realized how wrong all that was.

Write code that YOU want to write (that's called "scratching your own itch"). Put it out there for others to use, as-is or by taking it and making it their own my modifying it. If you're releasing code for ego, or to make a name for yourself, that's the wrong answer right off the bat and it's likely you'll never succeed. at doing either.

That's not to say that if you have an idea that you think is a good one, even if it's something you don't really need yourself, that you shouldn't do it. On the contrary, altruism is a fine motivation, if you think the idea will help others, then by all means have at it. It's better if it's code you yourself intend to use, but that's not a requirement.

Like I said, it's simple: if the code is useful to you (or you believe it will be useful to others), then release it, and that's that. Don't worry about anything else, you've already succeeded if you do just this. Someone will always bash your code, someone will always think they know better, but that's not your problem because if they actually DO know better, they can take your code, fork it and re-mold it in their image. That's the whole point of OSS, and if you don't get that you shouldn't be releasing anything at all. It shouldn't be about ego, even though it always is a little bit whether people want to admit it or not (the trick is making sure that's a secondary or even tertiary concern, just a very minor part of it).

The OSS community is not your boss

[binkzz]

Release it as you see fit. People will whine even if you perfect it, so just do it your way.

Not going to work

[lphuberdeau]

How many forum software are out there? Unless your forum is way better than any other one out there, which I really doubt, because custom-made software without large deployments tend to have many rough edges that took many years for the major ones to clean up, there is no way the software will evolve without strong leadership. OSS that really works is driven by a strong community. The idea of releasing software you no longer want to support to an OSS community is absurd. Releasing as OSS will take you more

Contribute it with no worries.

[PotatoHead]

I went through this a while back with a 3D STL file viewer. I originally wrote it in the classic, "Scratch an itch" fashion for my own use. It was also to explore OpenGL a bit. At the time, I had an SGI, some docs and some time. Enjoyed it a lot and learned a lot. It was a C project and C was something I really had no serious experience in.

I'm totally not a professional developer, but I can say it ran good and did what it was supposed to. I could feed the thing ugly, huge files that had nothing to do with CAD, big files that did, etc... and it all just worked nicely. What more does one need? If it were written in total bad ass style, it would still do those things, so who cares?

When I put the thing on SourceForge, I was nervous. Turned out to be a complete non-issue. (viewstl, BTW)

Got a lot of downloads and people were totally cool. I got patches sent in for a coupla stupid bugs. No brainer to just add those and bump the project rev.

One guy, teaching comp-sci, sent me an e-mail about the code. He used it for some class project. Some of it was actual viewing of files. The other use was to give his students an example of some code and pose a, "what would you do?" kind of thing.

At first, this pissed me off huge. However, he did send me the class notes and my program annotated with great comments! I refer to that document to this day as it's essentially a really solid comp-sci course study, tuned for my specific needs!

He and I bantered around about this. At the end of the day, it's better to post it as people can use it. They will use it and that's good. Some of the OSS stuff you may be running now is highly likely to be no better than what you contributed and do you care?

I sure don't.

That hunk of code improved some as I took some of the comments, learned some stuff, then revised the program. I learned enough to realize maybe some of them were more academic than I cared to deal with, so I ignored those. Nice to get to that spot in the first place! Took that time to rebuild it on Linux, having set a machine up, it was a perfect get my toes wet kind of activity.

Later, it ended up as part of some product being commercially produced in Germany. They wrote me, wanting license terms that made sense for commercial distribution. The trade was their patches for some new functionality, so the project improved, and my name somewhere on the box, and a donation to the FSF. No worries there. They got their license, the project saw some more code.

Guess what? Theirs really was not a whole lot better than mine!! Pretty funny actually.

Bottom line, through all of that, nobody ever contacted me with any kind of "you fricking lamer..." kind of stuff. The code got used and those users would not have had the chance had I been worried about how much of a bad ass I might or might not be.

So, just post it up. My experience is that most all people are pretty cool. You never know where it might lead to, and it's a great way to give back to the nice body of code you might be running right now. That is how it improves every day. Why not?

Today, it's just there being used, from time to time. Once in a while I get an e-mail about it. No recent patches these days, and that's likely due to the thing doing what it is supposed to do. Most are some question, or answering my request for occasional feedback. I wanted to know what people did with it, out of pure curiosity.

If it's useful, people will use it, period. I wouldn't post crap, knowingly anyway. But I would post up something that is useful, because it's gonna matter to somebody somewhere.

It was late and I didn't make myself clear

[goldcd]

By ripping off, I just meant taking using and never extending, raising bug reports/feedback/code changes etc.
I could just encrypt the source and hurl it out into the world as it is - take it or leave it. Just if I'm going to put the effort into documenting/re-writing before OSS release, I would like the effort to be appreciated by people reading the documentation and poking at the code.
*whines*

Not really a PHPBB clone

[goldcd]

Rather than having a subject header page and then X many pages of flat replies posts following, it allows new threads to be posted and replies at any point (i.e. makes a tree). Main page is just displaying x many parents and their respective rely trees on one page.
Not really designed to be a repository of information for a large number of users, rather a glorified IRC channel.
Site is bobpitch.com - and was designed to look similar to popbitch.com