Author: Ben Cotton

Ben formerly led open source messaging at Docker and was the Fedora Program Manager. He is the author of Program Management for Open Source Projects. Ben is an Open Organization Ambassador and frequent conference speaker. His personal website is Funnel Fiasco.

“Helping” versus being helpful

Every situation is different, so ask “would it be helpful if I _?” When you get agreement on your help, your work will be helpful.

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When to add QA to your project

Add QA when someone volunteers to do it. Recruit QA when your user-reported bugs start to overwhelm your developers.

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A veneer of organization

Building up too much process early is a way to look busy without accomplishing anything. You have to fit it to the community’s need.

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Your project is political, people’s identities aren’t

No project that involves people is “purely technical.” And “ideologically motivated” is not a synonym for “bad”.

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“Finished” and “no longer developed” aren’t the same

Software is finished when it reliably does what it’s intended to.

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Tasks and projects: what’s the difference?

It’s not always clear how to distinguish between tasks and projects. My rule of thumb: tasks have binary state, projects have several states.

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Membership needs a removal process

People need to be removed for a variety of reasons, and having planned ahead makes the process much easier.

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The easy fixes probably aren’t in your code

Mature projects don’t have many easy fixes left in the code. But test coverage, documentation, websites, and other areas probably have plenty.

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Public mistakes are a feature of open source

Everyone who is good at something has a trail of [mistakes] in their wake. Open source means sharing the learning experience with others.

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Write a vision and mission statement for your project

Your project’s vision and mission statement give the community an ideal to rally around. They define what your project is — and isn’t.

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