(2022-12-19) New Edition Producing Open Source Software

Karl Fogel has a new edition of Producing Open Source Software: How to Run a Successful Free Software Project. A free software project can be started, and it can be influenced by interested parties. But its assets cannot be made the property of any single owner, and as long as there are people somewhere — anywhere — interested in continuing it, it can never be unilaterally shut down. Everyone has infinite power; everyone has no power. It's an interesting situation. That is why I wanted to write this book in the first place, and, a decade later, wanted to update it. Free software projects have evolved a distinct culture, an ethos in which the liberty to make the software do anything one wants is a central tenet. Yet the result of this liberty is not a scattering of individuals each going their own separate way with the code, but enthusiastic collaboration and frequent compromise. Indeed, competence at cooperation itself is one of the most highly valued skills in free software. To manage these projects is to engage in a kind of hypertrophied cooperation, where one's ability not only to work with others but to come up with new ways of working together can result in tangible benefits to the software and the community that develops it. This book attempts to describe the techniques by which this may be done. It is by no means complete, but it is at least a beginning.

The 2nd edition rewrite was funded through a Kickstarter campaign. The response to that campaign was swift and generous, and I'm immensely grateful to all the people who pledged. I hope they will forgive me for taking almost four times longer than expected to finish the revisions.