Many think of an open source "community" as a passel of unpaid developers who code because they love it, but that's not the driving force behind most of the work. In general, only a small group is allowed to modify or submit changes to source code. Other developers submit code to these core developers. But most important for companies assessing the health of a project is the size--and motivation--of the group of users hammering away on the code and identifying what's wrong with it, and how the project responds to that input. For example, the Hyperic development team spends a quarter of its time participating in user forums, CEO Javier Soltero says.
Keeping a strong community is going to be the challenge for the Apache Harmony project, which was organized to generate an open source version of Java. IBM, which wants to keep Java as an open system despite Sun Microsystems' ownership, was a major backer. But Sun in November made its Java code open source, sucking the air out of Harmony's sails. Harmony will continue, says its chairman, Geir Magnusson, but what passionate user community will form around Harmony when open Java is available on the Net?
In contrast, JBoss has succeeded so well as an open source Java application server that there's scarcely any oxygen left for competitors. Before buying JBoss for $350 million last April, Red Hat said it would distribute and contribute to the ObjectWeb Jonas project, based in France. Now it's "Jonas who?" even at Red Hat. The user community had voted. Jonas may have its adherents in Europe, but in North America, it was wheezing. Separately, there are questions about whether the innovative Geronimo application server project at Apache will be able to run in JBoss' wake or just limp, even with support from IBM, which bought a company, Gluecode, that included Geronimo in its open source software stack.
Harmony and Jonas have one thing in common: They drew not on grassroots developer or user support for a core idea, but on high-level support from interested companies--IBM and Red Hat-- with their own agendas. When priorities changed for those companies, confidence in the sustainability of the project faded among supporters.
Fedora Legacy Linux is another project that foundered without a passionate user following. Linux-enthusiast developers started the Fedora Legacy project with a goal of providing security and bug fixes for older versions of Red Hat Fedora Linux. Unfortunately, the larger community didn't share a handful of developers' enthusiasm for "legacy" Linux, and the project was closed down at the end of last year because of the lack of support.
An active community is part of what set Apache apart in the mid-1990s from other freeware, of which IT managers were rightfully wary, says Apache founder Brian Behlendorf. Instead of a site packed with free code, at Apache.org potential business users found the code as it was being developed, with comments being exchanged on recent work. "It was easy to ask questions, to sign up for the mailing list, to see the long conversational threads on support questions," he says.
Behlendorf is describing the transparency that still marks any vibrant open source project. A community needs to be measured by its activity and transparency as much as its size. The reasons for decisions must be clear, with threads of discussion in forums leading up to them, and negative and positive comments getting their airing. That's one of open source's most powerful ingredients. "It's hard inside a company to say what you really think. Outside, people can afford to be brutally honest," says James McGovern, chief security architect with The Hartford's property and casualty IT group.
A healthy community also polices itself, jumping on those given to excesses, such as personal attacks. Strong forums and mailing lists focus on the big picture and don't obsess on the small stuff, including the personality differences. That's where leadership enters the calculation.
