Creating Open Source Application

[carlos]

I need help in starting an open source application. What steps should
I take in getting other developers in line with my idea without it
getting stolen? How can I get other's involved? What is a good place
to upload my existing code base?

Thanks!

 

[Rory Becker]

I need help in starting an open source application.

Cool. First step is to define what *you* mean by "open source".

What steps should I take in getting other developers in line with my idea without it
getting stolen?

Pick the right licence. Although if this is to be open source see my first
point. Why are you worried about people stealing your idea if you intend
to open source it?

How can I get other's involved?

Tell people what you're doing and ask them if they'd like to help

What is a good place
to upload my existing code base?

I have uploaded code to googlecode.com before and I know others that use
sourceforge.

 

[carlos]

Cool. First step is to define what *you* mean by "open source".




Pick the right licence. Although if this is to be open source see my first
point. Why are you worried about people stealing your idea if you intend
to open source it?


Tell people what you're doing and ask them if they'd like to help


I have uploaded code to googlecode.com before and I know others that use
sourceforge.

Rory,

Thanks for the info! I would not want someone to take my open source
idea, and create a proprietary application using my idea. What type of
license will I need for that? Using google code, can other developers
check in/out their contributions?

Thanks!

 

[Rory Becker]

Thanks for the info! I would not want someone to take my open source
idea, and create a proprietary application using my idea. What type of
license will I need for that?

This is the troubling issue that I went through. I'm afraid I do not know
whoch licence (if indeed any provided by google) would suit the licencing
of "The Source" with a non-commercial clause.

I ended up opting for the MIT licence. From what I understand this lets anyone
do what they want with the Code itself as long as they maintain my copyright
on the original code.

I would have liked to have a non-commercial clause of some kind but 2 things
stopped me fom ultimately feeling as if I needed one.

1.> I was creating a project who's purpose was to aid a community in a particular
area ( VS.Net plugin development through the DXCore (by DevExpress) ) As
such I didn't think there was very mucgh chance that someone could take
what I had done and try to sell it as the potential market is simply not
that big.

2.> I was (and still am) hoping to enthuse the community to the point where
they would rather contirbute to the existing software project that rip it
off and astart a copy elsewhere.

These points may apply to you or not. I cannot tell in advance

Using google code, can other developers
check in/out their contributions?

Google code has 3 levels of membership of a project.

1.> Not a member : can read all the code and contributes comments to the wiki
2.> Member : can contribute code and edit wiki pages
3.> Administrator/Owner : can administer the project

I hope this helps

 

[Sergio E.]

sourceforge is in my opinion the best site to put this kind of projects.

 

[JDeats]

I need help in starting an open source application. What steps should
I take in getting other developers in line with my idea without it
getting stolen? How can I get other's involved? What is a good place
to upload my existing code base?

Thanks!

All open source projects I can think of were started by a single,
highly motivated, highly skilled developer willing to devote a large
amount of their time to building the first version of the app, the web
site, advertising it, etc... Essentially before you can get a
community of developers behind your idea you have to work you tail off
and have something substantial to show for it. If it's good enough
then other developers will start using it and they will follow your
passion and contribute.

For most projects (utopian University CS Professors be damned) the
commerical software path does make more sense.