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Program management for open source projects

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2023-12-13

Focus release criteria on user-visible behavior

Focusing on user-visible behavior allows you distinguish between what you should fix and what you must fix.

Categories Posts
2023-12-06

Understand your community’s scope

It’s hard to say “we want to be for everyone” and continue on to “who is also interested in this work.”

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2023-11-29

It’s okay for your project to end

Open source projects don’t last forever, and that’s okay. The end of a project can be a sign of success, or at least partial success.

Categories Posts
2023-11-22

Save 40% on Program Management for Open Source Projects (and other ebooks)!

Use promo code turkeysale2023 at pragprog.com, to save 40% on ebooks and audio books through November 29.

Categories Posts
2023-11-15

Translations represent the hardest part of bootstrapping trust

The difficulty in reviewing translations is what makes those contributions so important. But how do you bootstrap trust for your translators?

Categories Posts
2023-11-09

New project repo basics

Before you start writing any code, what do you fill a new repo with? I’ve created a sample repository with some really basic examples.

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2023-11-01

Retaining your new Hacktoberfest contributors

Hacktoberfest is over and hopefully you had a bunch of new contributors to your project. So now how do you keep them around?

Categories Posts
2023-10-25

Managing issue tracker labels

Labels are arbitrary tags that either apply to an issue or not. But how you use them in your project can get very complicated.

Categories Posts
2023-10-18

Directing new contributors to areas of need

If you have a list of what your project needs & empower people to do them, you’ll find newcomers self-direct to the best contributions.

Categories Posts
2023-10-11

Handling bug reports for upstream projects

When a user files a report for a bug that’s actually in an upstream project, how should you handle it?

Categories Posts

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About This Site

Learn how to get your ducks in a row, your cats herded, or any other animal metaphor you can think of.

2025 trends

Hand-drawn graphs on a sheet of white paper sitting on a desk.
Read my 2025 open source trends predictions.

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Cover of the book Program Management for Open Source Projects

Ebooks available from The Pragmatic Bookshelf. Print available from Bookshop and Amazon.

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Upcoming talks

Want to book me for your project or company? See the Speaking page for details.

Latest posts

  • It’s okay to be partial to your work2025-05-28
  • Growing your project means doing less coding2025-05-21
  • Adding pre-report bug discussion2025-05-14
  • Use reserved domains and IPs in examples2025-05-07

Except where noted, all content © Ben Cotton and provided under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license except where noted. Logo design by alexlexi.

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