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Discussion on: What Makes a Good Open Source Project?

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Christopher Kade

I've been dabbling with the OSS project for a short while now and I've come to some personal conclusions.

Some things seem to be a requirement for an OSS project to be "good":

  • Clear and concise contribution documentation (how to file a bug report, how to set up your environment and tests etc.)
  • Good management of issues (automatisation of everything that is repetitive can help a long way, such as imposing a format and closing inactive issues)
  • A well defined code of conduct

Other things were pretty noticeable for someone who's just been starting:

  • Marking issues as "good first issues" will help a LOT of new contributors to get started
  • Transparency and communication; meaning an availability to answer questions that newcomers may have (as much as I know it can be hard to manage multiple projects & issues at the same time)
  • A slack channel (or any other type of platform). Many people are afraid of flooding an issue feed with small questions, that's where the slack channel comes in.