Is your project a Hydra?
Posted by Ian Holsman
In a recent post to one of the private member lists inside of the Apache Software Foundation, we were told that one of a project’s major contributors (of the project, not the ASF itself.. don’t get alarmed) was pulling out, due to the company he is currently working for switching standards.
The poster was a bit glum, about it, but as one of the other members mentioned:Fortunately we have strong support from many sides.This is the key to open source. It isn’t about a individual or a particular company.
When reviewing your open source project for possible use in your organisation, you need to ask:
Is this project a Hydra?
If one of the heads gets chopped off, will 3 others grow to replace it?
If not, avoid it.
This is one of the key reasons for the incubator in Apache, and what makes Apache projects what they are.
Don’t get me wrong, there are other factors you need to consider, (the Hydra was vanquished after all), but I believe this is what seperates True Open source projects, and open source ‘marketing’ wannabe’s.
Hey… ease up a little bit on the projects that don’t have many contributors!
First of all, there are plenty that would like to have lots of people, but let’s face it, developers are still a scarce resource. A big project is preferable for the security it’ll give you going forward, but not all little ones are “marketing wannabes” or random junk done by one guy.
Hi Dave.
it’s not the fact that they don’t have ‘many’ contributors, but the fact that they are all from the same place which worries me.
I’m concerned about companies jumping on the bandwagon and calling their stuff open source, when in fact all they have opened is the source code. not the decision making or architectural decisions of the project itself.