Starting a Project

From Genunix

Starting an OpenSolaris Project

You may have an idea for something you'ld like to see done in or for OpenSolaris that's larger in scope than a single article, bug fix or enhancement, but with a timeline that has a distinct end (though the date of it may be unknown or far away), unlike an ongoing community. OpenSolaris.org provides resources for projects, which may produce software, documentation, a conference, or something else.

You can see examples of existing projects at the OpenSolaris.org Project Portal.

Before you start

Before you start a project, considering some questions may help clarify your idea or form your proposal. The following list is adapted from Marney Beard's "Bonehead List":

1. Is someone else in the community doing anything like this? Might someone have useful insights?
2. Who is affected by or has an interest in this? How are the needs of others in the community met by this?
3. Who are the users? What problem in their lives are we trying to address? How will this feature/product/system achieve that?
4. Specifically, concretely, and measurably: What are the goals, at what cost? Especially: What does "ease of use" mean for this?
5. How do we want people to perceive this? What are the marketing messages that our design should support?
6. Two years from now, how will this be used?
7. Can or should this be done in phases?
8. What are the internal and external dependencies? What other products, platforms, or technologies are required for this to work? What are the detailed implications of those dependencies?
9. How do users transition from what they're using to this new feature/product/system?
10. How do open source considerations affect this? How will existing open source communities react to this? Will this accommodate open source or third-party apps running on or with it?
11. Describe the boundaries of this feature, application or system you are designing. What's on the other side of the boundary? (For example, how did the user start this feature/app or enter this world? What happens when he or she stops using it?)
12. How do other products do this?
13. Is it accessible to people with disabilities or people in special situations? (Trivial example: can you run it without a mouse?)
14. Is it fully internationalized, with a localization plan?

Starting a project

The process for requesting a new project requires that a community member write a proposal to the opensolaris-discuss list and at least one other community member agree with the proposal. If the proposal doesn't garner a seconder within 30 days, it will be considered void. The process is intentionally lightweight because we expect that the bulk of new collaborative efforts will be projects with many growing into full communities comprised of one or more projects. Projects can live within a community or independently.

Once your project space is created on opensolaris.org, the Project Lead Site Reference explains how to manage it.