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You sound like you speak from experience. What makes for a project's success then? Is it the leadership? The raw motivation? How do you facilitate interest?

You sound like you speak from experience. What makes for a project's success then? Is it the leadership? The raw motivation? How do you facilitate interest? Where are the developers and productive users coming together to talk? I ask because I don't know how long I've really been on "the scene" myself and I do truly still feel there's something special about projects like Alacritty and Rust. When I look around and compare tools, mostly, I see nothing but the same song and dance.

coldtea 5y ago
>What makes for a project's success then? I've seen a few factors play an important role: (a) dev's persistence - many projects come with grandiose goals, go some of the way, but the dev loses interest after 1 year or so and abandons them. (b) good marketing - many project are good and maintained well, but just don't market themselves nicely. A nice landing page, examples, documentation, screenshots, and even some superficial stuff like a nice logo and icon, all play quite a role in the success of one FOSS over another. It's not enough to welcome users/contributors, you also need to make yourself known well. (c) solving a unique need (this is not necessary - e.g. you can be "just another editor" and do well - but it's a big bonus if you have that. >I ask because I don't know how long I've really been on "the scene" myself and I do truly still feel there's something special about projects like Alacritty and Rust. About Rust yes. It has proven itself, shipped code in major companies, got books, wide adoption, even interest from Microsoft, Facebook, and others. Allacrity, I'm not so sure. A lot of big early claims, but still nothing special to write home about. It's also that Rust solved a real problem (memory safe, close to the metal, modern language), whereas Allacrity is just one of many terminals. And nobody really thought "what I need is a secure terminal" - as if terminals are a big security issue. A faster terminal sure, but there are several plenty fast terminals, with GPU support and everything.

coldtea 5y ago

>What makes for a project's success then? I've seen a few factors play an important role: (a) dev's persistence - many projects come with grandiose goals, go some of the way, but the dev loses interest after 1 year or so and abandons them. (b) good marketing - many project are good and maintained well, but just don't market themselves nicely. A nice landing page, examples, documentation, screenshots, and even some superficial stuff like a nice logo and icon, all play quite a role in the success of one FOSS over another. It's not enough to welcome users/contributors, you also need to make yourself known well. (c) solving a unique need (this is not necessary - e.g. you can be "just another editor" and do well - but it's a big bonus if you have that. >I ask because I don't know how long I've really been on "the scene" myself and I do truly still feel there's something special about projects like Alacritty and Rust. About Rust yes. It has proven itself, shipped code in major companies, got books, wide adoption, even interest from Microsoft, Facebook, and others. Allacrity, I'm not so sure. A lot of big early claims, but still nothing special to write home about. It's also that Rust solved a real problem (memory safe, close to the metal, modern language), whereas Allacrity is just one of many terminals. And nobody really thought "what I need is a secure terminal" - as if terminals are a big security issue. A faster terminal sure, but there are several plenty fast terminals, with GPU support and everything.