Opensource.guide: [RFC] Getting Started > Preparing For Launch

[nayafia]

Hey open source maintainers! We would love your feedback on the Getting Started > Preparing For Launch article. We will leave this open for comments until Sep 1, 2016.

Does anything seem inconsistent with your experience? What is missing? Are there any other helpful resources on this topic?

Feel free to comment and discuss here, or even open a pull request to suggest changes.

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[MikeMcQuaid]

Every open source project should include the following:

I wonder if it's worth also recommending the standard filenames (and the ones GitHub looks for) alongside here.

Legal work is no fun. The good news is there are many licenses available that you can copy and paste into your repository. It will only take a minute to protect your hard work.

I know it may repeat elsewhere but would be great to, in the style of http://choosealicense.com, specifically recommend Apache/MIT/GPL here as using more popular licenses makes your work easier to use and contribute to.

If you place your CONTRIBUTING file in the root directory

Worth mentioning you can also put it in .github?

Otherwise, great stuff 👍

[benbalter]

You’re almost ready to launch your project!

Woah, woah woah! Slow down their speedy! I just chose a name on the last page. Now you want me to launch something? Should I, you know, create the project first? Specifically, I think there needs to be an article between the two that answers:

• Should I start with a public repo or a private repo?
• Should I treat it like an open source project from the start, or commit passwords now and just remove them later?
• When do I know it's time to launch my project? 0.1? 1.0? Should I release a beta first?
• Can I work with other people, even if it's closed source?
• etc.

Every open source project should include the following:

I'd make that a table of contents with links to the subheadings

[benbalter]

(You can use http://choosealicense.com to find the right license for your project.)

1. Why is this a parenthetical? We created an _entire_ site to help our users navigate the complexity of licensing. We should shout it loud and proud!
2. I'd make it "choosealicense.com" to make it a bit more human, and a bit less machine readable.

[benbalter]

The Django Code of Conduct and the Angular Code of Conduct are two good examples. The Contributor Covenant is a code of conduct used by many projects.

My reaction as a potential open source maintainer here: "Which one should I choose? If I'm doing a Ruby project can I use the Django one? Is the Angular one just for Angular projects? What's the difference between each? Ahh. Open source is so hard, maybe I just will keep my project closed source..."

I'd suggest we (A) _suggest_ a code of conduct (FWIW, we're going to be pushing Contributor Covenant + an alternative), and (B) if we offer > 1, describe the advantages/differences/when to use each.

/cc @CoralineAda, the resident code of conduct expert (and creator of the contributor covenant)

[benbalter]

Click “publish” and pat yourself on the back.

Where? How? I'd link to https://help.github.com/articles/making-a-private-repository-public/.

[CoralineAda]

The Django Code of Conduct and the Angular Code of Conduct are two good examples. The Contributor Covenant is a code of conduct used by many projects.

“The Contributor Covenant is a drop-in code of conduct that has been adopted by thousands of open source projects. The Django Code of Conduct and the Angular Code of Conduct are good examples of highly customized codes of conduct that can serve as an inspiration for writing your own."

[mlinksva]

Skimmed through again and I agree with @benbalter:

Woah, woah woah! Slow down their speedy! I just chose a name on the last page. Now you want me to launch something?

Even the article title "preparing for launch" seems incongruous in a section titled "_Before_ you Get Started". Changing the section to "Getting Started" would fix the title incongruity.

[nayafia]

@benbalter you raise some good questions! This handbook doesn't really cover the actual creation, vs. high-level "how should I structure my project for success". I agree it feels jarring to go from naming to launching without making this clear. I'll likely add a transition paragraph at the end of "Branding"/beginning of this one to make it smoother.

[nayafia]

Closed per #106.