How to Start an Open Source Project: The Ultimate Guide

Open source software powers the world. From operating systems like Linux to web frameworks like React, open source is everywhere. By definition, open source software is software with source code that anyone can inspect, modify, and enhance. But open source is more than just a licensing model – it‘s a powerful way to build software and communities.

In this comprehensive guide, I‘ll walk you through everything you need to know to start your own open source project, based on years of experience as a full-stack developer and open source contributor. We‘ll cover finding the right idea, setting up your project for success, building a thriving community, and more. I‘ll also include real-world examples, data, and insights from some of the most successful open source projects out there.

Whether you‘re looking to solve a problem, learn new skills, or make an impact on the world, starting an open source project can be incredibly rewarding. But it‘s also challenging, especially if you‘ve never done it before. Don‘t worry – by the end of this guide, you‘ll have a clear roadmap and the tools you need to succeed. Let‘s dive in!

Why Start an Open Source Project?

There are many compelling reasons to start an open source project, both personally and professionally. Here are a few of the top benefits:

1. Showcase your skills and learn new ones. Working on an open source project is a great way to demonstrate your expertise to potential employers or clients. A study by hiring platform HackerRank found that 64% of hiring managers look for open source contributions when evaluating candidates. It‘s also an opportunity to learn new programming languages, frameworks, and tools as you build something from scratch.

2. Make an impact. By solving a real problem and sharing your solution freely, you can positively impact developers around the world. Your code could help someone automate a tedious task, learn a new concept, or build a business. There‘s immense satisfaction in knowing something you built is being used by hundreds or even thousands of people.

3. Get feedback and improve code quality. When you open source your code, you‘re inviting the community to review it and suggest improvements. This can be tremendously valuable for catching bugs, identifying security issues, and pushing you to follow best practices. A 2018 Tidelift survey of over 1,200 open source maintainers found that 59% contribute to open source because they want to learn from other developers‘ feedback.

4. Build a network and enhance career prospects. Open source is as much about people as it is about code. By collaborating with developers around the world on a shared project, you can expand your professional network in ways that would be hard to replicate elsewhere. You may end up working with some of these folks in the future or getting job offers based on your open source work. The same Tidelift study found that 52% of maintainers contribute to open source to build relationships with other developers.

Now that you know some of the top reasons to start an open source project, let‘s talk about how to come up with a great project idea.

Coming Up With a Good Open Source Project Idea

One of the most common questions aspiring open source maintainers have is what to build. The possibilities are endless, but here are some key characteristics of promising open source project ideas:

1. Scratches your own itch. The best open source projects often start as solutions to problems the creators faced themselves. For example, Facebook engineers created the React JavaScript library to help them build user interfaces more efficiently. Shopify created the Ruby on Rails e-commerce framework because they needed it for their own online store.

As Tom Preston-Werner, co-founder of GitHub, wrote in his classic post "Open Source (Almost) Everything": "When you start a new project, think about how you can make it immediately useful to yourself. That way, even if no one else ever uses it, you still get value out of it. You can‘t lose!"

2. Does one thing well. Great open source projects tend to be focused and do one thing really well. This makes the project easier for users to understand and contribute to. For example, the requests library in Python does a great job making HTTP requests simpler. The moment library in JavaScript makes parsing, validating, and displaying dates and times much easier.

Avoid the temptation to create a sprawling project that tries to solve too many different problems at once. Start small and focused.

3. Has a clear target audience. Having a specific type of user in mind for your project will help guide your decisions about design, functionality, and prioritization. Are you building a tool for front-end web developers? Data scientists? Marketers? Define your audience upfront and validate that there‘s a real need for your solution.

Red Hat‘s "The Open Source Way" guidebook recommends asking questions like: "What problems are people in this audience facing? How could an open source project uniquely help them? Who will contribute to the project?"

4. Is feasible for you to implement. Make sure the initial version is something you have the skills, time, and resources to build. Many ambitious open source projects fizzle out because the creator bit off more than they could chew.

If your vision is big, consider starting with a small piece of it first. You can always expand later once you have something working and helpful. Google‘s Kubernetes container orchestration platform started as an internal project before being open sourced once it was mature.

Once you have a solid idea, it‘s time to lay the technical and legal groundwork for your project.

Laying the Groundwork for Your Open Source Project

Before you write a single line of code, there are a few key decisions and tasks that will set your project up for success:

1. Choosing the right license. An open source license tells users what they can and can‘t do with your code. It‘s important to choose a license that matches your goals for the project. Here‘s a quick overview of some of the most popular licenses:

• MIT License: A short and simple permissive license. It lets people do almost anything they want with your code, including using it in proprietary projects, as long as they include the license text.
• GNU General Public License (GPL) v3: A copyleft license that requires anyone who distributes your code or a derivative work to make the source available under the same terms. This guarantees the code and any improvements to it stay open source.
• Apache License 2.0: Similar to the MIT license but also provides an express grant of patent rights from contributors to users.

I recommend using choosealicense.com to compare different licenses and find the best one for your project. You can also consult with your company‘s legal department if you‘re releasing a project as part of your job.

2. Writing great documentation. Comprehensive, well-written documentation is essential for the long-term success of any open source project. At a minimum, your project should include:

• README file: This is the first thing most people will see when they come across your project. It should clearly explain what your project does, why it matters, how to install and use it, and how to contribute.
• Code of Conduct: A code of conduct sets expectations for behavior within your community and signals that you value an inclusive, welcoming environment. I recommend using the Contributor Covenant as a starting point.
• Contributing guide: This file should explain how someone can contribute to your project, including how to file a bug report, suggest a new feature, or submit a pull request. Make this as clear and detailed as possible to remove any barriers to participation.

GitHub‘s Open Source Guides provide excellent tips for writing effective project documentation. Remember to keep your docs up-to-date as your project evolves.

3. Setting up your development environment. You‘ll need to choose a version control system like Git to track changes to your project over time. Host your code on a platform like GitHub, GitLab, or Bitbucket to make it easy for others to find and contribute to.

Consider setting up continuous integration and continuous deployment (CI/CD) to automatically test and release new versions of your project. Tools like Travis CI, CircleCI, and GitHub Actions make this relatively straightforward.

4. Promoting your project. Once you have a working version of your project, it‘s time to start spreading the word. Share your project on social media, relevant forums and mailing lists, and at meetups or conferences. Write a blog post announcing the project and explaining the problem it solves.

Reach out to influencers and thought leaders in your space who might be interested in your project. Consider creating a Twitter account or newsletter for your project to keep people updated on your progress.

Building and Sustaining a Community

Releasing your project to the world is a big milestone, but it‘s just the first step in a longer journey. The most successful open source projects thrive on the strength of their communities. Here are some key strategies for building and sustaining a healthy community of contributors:

1. Make it easy to contribute. Remove as much friction as possible from the contribution process by providing clear documentation, labeling issues for newcomers, and responding promptly to pull requests.

Use inclusive language in your documentation and discussions. Avoid jargon and in-jokes that might make newcomers feel left out. Be patient and welcoming in your interactions.

2. Give contributors ownership and recognition. Look for opportunities to give trusted contributors more responsibility, such as maintaining the issue tracker, reviewing pull requests, or mentoring newcomers. Publicly recognize and thank contributors for their work, whether through tweets, blog posts, or a contributors file in your repo.

In his book "Working in Public: The Making and Maintenance of Open Source Software," Nadia Eghbal notes that "people contribute to open source for many reasons, but one of the most common is a desire for recognition and ownership."

3. Communicate openly and frequently. Keep discussions about the project‘s roadmap, major decisions, and governance as open as possible. Hold regular meetings (in-person or virtual) to gather feedback and ideas from the community.

Maintainer burnout is a real risk, so be upfront about your capacity and availability. Don‘t be afraid to set boundaries and ask for help when needed.

4. Plan for long-term sustainability. Think about how your project will continue to thrive even if you step away from it. Cultivate a strong bench of co-maintainers and establish clear guidelines for governance and decision-making.

Consider forming an organization or foundation to support the project if it starts to grow beyond what you can manage on your own. For example, the Cloud Native Computing Foundation was created to steward the Kubernetes project and ensure its long-term success.

Learning from Other Successful Open Source Projects

One of the best ways to set your own project up for success is to learn from those who have gone before you. Here‘s a closer look at a few inspiring open source projects and how they‘ve built thriving communities:

• Linux: Linux is the most widely-used open source operating system in the world, powering everything from smartphones to supercomputers. Key to its success has been its clear governance structure, with founder Linus Torvalds serving as the "benevolent dictator" and a network of maintainers responsible for different subsystems.

In "The Cathedral and the Bazaar," Eric S. Raymond wrote that one of Linux‘s strengths is that "all the people who are most actively developing code for the kernel and contributing patches are doing it voluntarily and for fun, not because their daytime employer is paying them to." This intrinsic motivation aligns incentives and ensures high-quality contributions.

• Rust: Rust is a systems programming language that aims to be fast, safe, and productive. It has a thriving community of contributors and has been adopted by major companies like Amazon, Google, and Microsoft.

One key to Rust‘s success has been its clear and well-documented RFC (Request for Comments) process for proposing and debating changes to the language. This ensures that all stakeholders have a voice and that decisions are made transparently.

Rust also has a strong code of conduct and a welcoming community that proactively reaches out to underrepresented groups. As core team member Carol Nichols wrote, "The Rust community is not perfect, but I‘m proud of how much we care about making it a pleasant place to be, even as we continue to grow."

• TensorFlow: TensorFlow is an open source machine learning framework developed by Google. It has a massive community of contributors and has been adopted by companies like Airbnb, Coca-Cola, and Intel.

One of TensorFlow‘s strengths is its extensive documentation, which includes tutorials, guides, and API references. The TensorFlow team also actively engages with the community through social media, blog posts, and events.

TensorFlow has a clear governance structure, with a technical steering committee that sets the project‘s strategic direction and a community team that focuses on growing the ecosystem. This split ensures that the project can evolve quickly while still being responsive to its users‘ needs.

Conclusion

Starting an open source project can be daunting, but it‘s also an incredible opportunity to make an impact, sharpen your skills, and build relationships with developers around the world. By finding the right idea, laying a solid foundation, and cultivating a welcoming community, you can create something truly valuable.

Remember, open source is a marathon, not a sprint. Success requires patience, persistence, and a willingness to learn from others. But with the right approach and mindset, there‘s no limit to what you can achieve.

As you embark on your open source journey, know that you‘re part of a global movement to make software development more collaborative, transparent, and accessible. Your contributions, no matter how small, can make a real difference in people‘s lives.

So go out there and build something amazing. The world can‘t wait to see what you create!