O'Reilly has published a book for software developers and managers who have started, or are considering starting, an open source project. Producing Open Source Software, by Karl Fogel, aims to help projects avoid failure by outlining best — and worst — practices.

According to Fogel, anecdotal evidence suggests that as many an 90 to 95 percent of all open source projects fail. Fogel says that his book looks at why projects fail, in addition to offering advice on how to succeed. “My hope is that after reading it, you will have a repertory of techniques not just for avoiding common pitfalls, but also for dealing with the growth and maintenance of a successful project.”

Apache author and CollabNet co-founder Brian Behlendorf says Fogel's book can save would-be open source project creators years of time. “There's a universe of best practice and lore that before now has been largely an oral tradition, picked up by sitting on a good project mailing list for years and learning the patterns of communication and process. Karl has done the software development world a tremendous favor by finally capturing much of that in this book.”

Author Fogel has considerable experience managing open source projects, having led development of SubVersion for CollabNet. Prior to that, he contributed to the CVS and GNU Emacs projects.

Availability

The 302-page book is available now direct from O'Reilly, priced at $24.95. A sample chapter (PDF file) is available for download.

 
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