Producing Open Source Software
I can’t imagine why my digital page turning should have leap to “Handling Difficult People,” but it did. 😉
Actually just skimming the TOC, this looks like a good book for any open source project.
My question to you, once you have had a chance to read it, could the title also be:
Producing Open Source Topic Maps?
Why/Why Not?
Seems to me that the topic maps community could be more collaborative than it is.
I am sure others feel the same way, so why doesn’t it happen more often?
It’s an excellent book, I read it when I made TM++ to get some general guidelines on how to make Open Source software.
Comment by Inge Henriksen — February 25, 2011 @ 6:56 pm
@Inge, I will read all of it but what parts did you find the most useful for your project?
What parts would you suggest more than others for a public topic map project? (data not software) Or would that make a difference in your opinion?
Thanks!
Comment by Patrick Durusau — February 25, 2011 @ 8:49 pm
This book is absolutely a “must read” in my opinion for people starting or contributing to open source projects. In my opinion there is generally to little knowledge in this area, and maybe in the topic maps community in particular.
The book “Understanding Open Source and Free Software Licensing” by Andrew St. Laurent has valuable information for people considering to start up an open source project (and any body dealing with open source / software).
See http://oreilly.com/catalog/osfreesoft/book/
… and since any open source project should have a good VCS for its source, reading “Version Control with Git” by Jon Loeliger would not hurt.
See http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596520137
Comment by Robert Strind — February 26, 2011 @ 12:22 am
@Robert, thanks for the comments and the pointers to the other books!
However much anyone may enjoy reading Andrew St. Laurent’s book, I would not rely upon it as legal advice for a project.
As any topic mapper knows, terms don’t always mean the same thing in different domains. That is especially true in legal matters.
IP law, particularly IP law on an international scale, is a matter for paid counsel, who presumably have insurance if they give the wrong advice.
Enjoy book and use it to shape your questions to counsel but don’t take it as a substitute for real legal advice.
Comment by Patrick Durusau — February 26, 2011 @ 4:32 am
I found the parts of how to run and setup a community project the most useful, write a mission statement, feature list, future features, developer guidelines, all of that and of cource advices on the version control systems, forums, mail lists etc. For someone like me that had no idea on how to go about starting an open source community project it was very valuable.
For a topic maps project the whole collaboration part is good to know, how to run or be part of a community project that may be geographically spread all over the world.
Comment by Inge Henriksen — February 26, 2011 @ 10:00 am