Does it solve my problem out of the box? If so, and it works out of the box, then it's a winner. All software has bugs, but if you have a specific use case, a

Does it solve my problem out of the box? If so, and it works out of the box, then it's a winner. All software has bugs, but if you have a specific use case, and it works for that, it's good for me. If it is close to what I need, I submit a pull request against it. Depending on the reception and how people take it, and how easy it is to get it accepted is good signal on how easy it is to work with the project. When doing the PR, you get a feeling of how the code looks. Is it straightforward? Commented? Do you like the style, do you see obvious errors? Any red flags should be noted. At any point, if you think you can do better, you can fork it or start over from scratch and do it yourself, with a lot more information on what you need, and what the possible pitfalls are.