What Qualifies an Open Source Project as Successful?
The title is actually deceiving. I’m really going to talk about my pet open source project. I will talk about its low download rate and the lack of feedback it gets. I will then discuss if that makes it successful.
My pet open source project is called PlaneDisaster.NET. It is a SQL frontend for Microsoft Access and SQLite databases. Basically it allows you to query and manipulate Microsoft Access databases through the JetSQL engine. I wrote it originally to teach myself C#, and then eventually began to rely on it extensively as part of a contracting job where my data was being stored in an access database.
So how can I classify this project as unsuccessful. First of all the project gets little traffic and even less feedback. The most downloads I got in a calendar month was 234 in March of 2007, and there were 2 trouble tickets opened about it anonymously that I didn’t open myself. So obviously the program gets used. However, I have yet to have anyone testify that, “Yes I downloaded your project and I use it regularly.” People I know have downloaded the program and given me feedback on it, but none of them have any actual use for the program.
There is some other data supporting the conclusion that some people actually use my project. A similar console based project called JetSQLConsole gets far fewer downloads on SourceForge than my project does. There is one person that gets notified when I post a new release on SourceForge. Traffic jumps a bit when I make a new release. So in all likelihood the project has limited success in terms of being utilitarian to others, but fails miserably in giving the author a sense of benefiting others.
There are also other measures that I can qualify this open source project as successful.. This was originally my “teach myself C#” project. I have succeeded in that task. It later became my “teach myself NSIS” and “teach myself WiX” project when I needed to learn how to write an installer. It was immensely successful in those regards. It has also been useful for when I has to deal with Microsoft Access databases. So it has been of great academic value and utilitarian value to myself.
The conclusion I’ve come to is that you cannot define the success of an open source project by a single set of benchmarks. It depends on many factors. First and foremost is what purpose the software serves. Like closed source software, some programs serve a very small audience, and some could benefit most users if installed on their workstations. Some are designed by the programmer for their own personal use and released as open source in the unlikely event others will benefit.
As one final postscript, I hope my readership does not discount JetSQLConsole if they need a SQL editor for Microsoft Access Databases. It has a lot of potential. I have submitted a patch to it a while back that is part of the current binary release. Some people might find a command line based program more useful. With a bit more work the program could become serious competition to PlaneDisaster.NET.
Getting the Attention of Redmond.
One of my more insignificant accomplishments as a software developer is discovering an digression between the actual error code two Windows API functions returned and the ones the MSDN claimed they returned. These two functions are NetUserGetGroups and NetUserGetLocalGroups. It took Microsoft three months and one day to get back to me with there response informing me of the changes made and thanking me for my feedback. Also, towards the bottom of there response was the following text.
A recent change on the MSDN Library has ended our ability to provide the
e-mail based feedback system you have been using for the past few years.
In the future, please take advantage of the two new mechanisms provided
by MSDN:(1) Ratings and Feedback – a feature that pops-up when you hover near
the stars in the upper right hand corner of the Windows SDK
documentation pages on MSDN.(2) Community Content – a feature added to the bottom of each page to
allow users registered with MSDN using a LiveId to ask questions and add
contentWe invite you to use the Ratings and Feedback features to comment on and
give your rating for the topic itself. Please use the Community Content
option to ask questions and add your own developer guidance on the
topic. And continue to use the MSDN Forums for developer questions. We
appreciate your patience with this change to our system and very much
want your continued feedback, suggestions, and critique of our developer
content.
When I originally sent the bug report in there was no Community Content section at the bottom of every API doc page on MSDN. However, it was there when I received my response. Normally one would think that their response queue was backed up, and as a result it takes 3 months for them to get to these minor issues. However, it should be noted that on March 25th, the day before I received my response, I sent an email to the WiX users mailing list about some issues with their documentation and received a response the next day from Microsoft Technical Evangelist Bob Arson.
Many of you will say its coincidence. However, personally I feel Bob pulled the Microsoft equivalent of my FBI file to see if I had any negative marks in the eyes of Microsoft. After seeing this was not the case he noticed I sent an as yet unanswered email to the MSDN SDK feedback team, and he made a phone call to bump that to the top of the queue.
While I don’t believe Microsoft has a file on me, I do think that Bob or another Redmond employee could easily search for all correspondence I’ve had with Microsoft’s feedback mechanisms under a given email address. I know someone that that works for Microsoft. He has found bugs in products his team is not responsible for. Since he is a project manager, he can file a bug report internally and assign it directly to the appropriate programmer. The bug is usually closed unresolved and he is requested to file the bug through the public feedback mechanisms. This tells me two things. The first is their programmers don’t enjoy getting bug reports and hide behind bureaucracy. The second is that there is a unified bug tracking system at Microsoft. Assuming that public feedback mechanisms all filter into this, it would make sense that an appropriately entitled person could search for all tickets that reference my email address. If follows of course I assume that Bob was appropriately entitled.
So tell me folks, does anyone have any experiences with Microsoft Feedback teams that support or detract from my theory? Leave a comment because I would love to hear from you.
Just an Idea
Things always start out with ideas. Webbloging is a new idea to me.
As programmers we are all surrounded by ideas.
But how do you know an idea is good? How do you know if your idea is good?
From what I’ve learned the only way to find out is to share.
So I rounded some friends and decided to start a place to let our ideas be shared. No matter how eccentric.
Welcome to the site.