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Open source software projects are not developed by a paid staff like propriery companies, but by a dedicated community. These open source communities are essential to the creation and improvement of a program. Requiring more than just an open source license, these communities necessitate many things to get off the ground and be successful.
An open source community is a group of developers and users with a general goal of building or developing a project. How active members are differ in each community, with roles ranging from testing to support to writing code. Very active members may gain the privilege of exclusive access and control of the project. All participants, however, are encouraged to contribute to advance the software and/or solve any problems.
At the start, an open source community is comprised of a few developers, as it takes time–years even–to get a program running. In fact, many are managed by a “benevolent dictator”: one person in charge of development and input. So, it’s key to have something that can be tested and operated by users. It’s ideal to deliver elements early and often no matter the condition. With marketing of its advantages, the project will then attract interest from users and contributions from other skilled developers. They need to be supported with credit for their work and more responsibility to keep them involved.
Even when things are up and running, there will be difficulties. For one, with the increase of users there will be a strong demand for support. It can be a tedious process to address all technical issues, thus it is imperative to have people dedicated to this role. There is also the slight possibility of a member taking the code and creating a competing project. Finally, a structure or form of governance needs to be implemented for decision making so the community can live beyond the founders and lost members.
