-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On 06/25/2012 08:55 PM, [email protected] wrote: > > I been asked to help take a fairly extensive body of code and > release it as an open source project. > > I'm wondering if someone can point me to some resources that might > guide us along this process?
Long form: http://producingoss.com/ Medium form: https://www.theopensourceway.org/wiki/Main_Page One checklist: https://www.theopensourceway.org/wiki/Organizing_a_community_-_checklist We've only got one checklist posted right now, but there are more coming over this summer as I work with some folks on open sourcing more content about how to open source code. :) > My collaborators have a body of code used for physics simulation. > It's all under Mercurial for internal management. They want to > distribute it under an open source model, while maintaining > control of the "official" version. > > Any pointers, guidelines, or advice would be appreciated. My main piece of advice would be to abandon the above approach. - it's a recipe for failing to get a community interested and excited about the software. If people don't get to have direct influence on the roadmap for the software, they won't stick around. Your collaborators could do a binary release of a version they want to call official, but it should be a secondary effort to working directly in the upstream project. Thus this binary release wouldn't have code not in the upstream, for example, but would be a specific release in time that your collaborators could support for their environment(s). The reality is, when you start a project, you control it. What governance you setup defines how the control is managed going forward. Put in place people for important roles - release manager, documentation, project whipcracker, etc. - and a governance structure that people understand, usually a meritocracy. Who votes in new maintainers? Existing maintainers, which start out as all your own people. The project will organically grow to be similar and match your needs, since your people are there influencing every day. - - Karsten - -- Karsten 'quaid' Wade, Sr. Analyst - Community Growth http://community.redhat.com .^\ http://TheOpenSourceWay.org @quaid (identi.ca/twitter/IRC) \v. gpg: AD0E0C41 -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.12 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org/ iD8DBQFP8bcP2ZIOBq0ODEERAn0HAKDKua2XNxCm0ZNk9P21MwEsN5k6IACfdpCm kNTfsPHNywT9xp/oyjroQgQ= =bqwc -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- _______________________________________________ tos mailing list [email protected] http://lists.teachingopensource.org/mailman/listinfo/tos
