4 ms·
Ask HN: What do you expect in an open source project website?
Hi everybody,
I am currently working on an open source project (https://github.com/rita-marylin-raquel/softbloks) and thinking to develop a website to present it.
My question is what would you expect as developper in such a website ? What are the information you would like to find and what information do you find useless in usual websites about software projects ?
Thanks for your answers.
- neurobuddha 10y agoI'll answer this from the position of having just launched an Open Source project with accompanying website. The software is Wheatbin and the website is actually a landing page: http://wheatbin.com http://wheatbin.com with a short video (of admittedly low production value). What people complained about on my site (and I tried to fix) was the lack of specifics, mainly 1) why someone would want to use Wheatbin over competing productivity software, 2) to stop using metaphor and get into specifics and 3) keep the writing simple. Your software is different of course, but the general rules probably apply.
- usernamebias 10y agoHey, hope this helps. From a marketing standpoint Open Source projects should be treated just like a paid product. You want to inform the userbase of what, why, where, and how. Get them to convert, or in this case adopt and/or contribute. You can start by creating a Landing page. Keep it static and you can host it with Github Pages. The site should contain an Intro (what, why, where) and reading friendly Docs (how). It also does not hurt, to include an option for people to donate e.g Gratipay. Resources: Free Landing Page Templates -- http://startbootstrap.com/template-categories/landing-pages/ http://startbootstrap.com/template-categories/landing-pages/ Docs Generator - https://github.com/tripit/slate https://github.com/tripit/slate
- rmr-rg 10y agoThis helps, thanks a lot :)