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This proposal is now in the Beta phase — example questions are locked!

63 Example Questions (5 closed)

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up vote 18 down vote

added by Philipp Jan 19 '15 at 12:20

up vote 15 down vote

added by Philipp Jan 20 '15 at 8:33

The question was marked for close unfairly, this question is 100% ontopic. – peterh Jan 24 '15 at 13:31

Agreed: I think the list of answers to this question is well-known and finitely long; it is not overly broad and should not be closed, in my opinion. Maybe it would be better phrased as "What are the general strategies for monetizing my open source project?" – apsillers Jan 26 '15 at 23:44

with 18 upvotes, 2 downvotes, 5 close votes and one reopen vote, this question obviously is a tricky one. I see why one would say that this question is rather broad. If we make it to the beta phase we're going to get this question regardless of whether we want it or not. And as @aspillers has said, it's not a very difficult question to answer. So I would suggest we pose and answer this question in the private beta phase. (perhaps even as a community wiki). I'll vote reopen for now, I'm sure this question will get discussed on our meta at some point. – overactor Mar 8 '15 at 6:56

up vote 14 down vote

added by PeeHaa Jan 19 '15 at 10:35

This feels off-topic. It's easily expandable to any project, open-source or not. Sure, there might be a couple more things to worry about, but it feels off to me. – QPaysTaxes Jan 23 '15 at 2:24

@QPaysTaxes Not really. The issues of motivation are very different between work-for-hire ventures versus more purpose-driven motives. "How do I find developers for ProjectLibre" verus "How do I find developers for Microsoft Project"... very different answers. – Robert Cartaino Jan 23 '15 at 15:31

up vote 14 down vote

added by ratchet freak Jan 20 '15 at 9:59

up vote 14 down vote

added by ratchet freak Jan 21 '15 at 19:41

up vote 13 down vote

added by James Jenkins Jan 20 '15 at 14:53

up vote 12 down vote

added by overactor Jan 19 '15 at 9:59

how do you quantify that? sounds entirely relative and subjective and very, very, easy to abuse. – albert Jan 28 '15 at 19:42

@albert I'm afraid I don't comprehend why this would be easy to abuse? Sure the premise of the question relies on something subjective, but that's the askers problem. Answers to this question would assume that the asker is correct. unless of course the body of the question strongly suggests otherwise, in which case it would be a bad question. – overactor Jan 29 '15 at 10:43

the asker can never be correct in this question. you can't quantify it. this way is so broad and vague anything can be construed as bad. if you want an answer in that sense, try to turn that person's enthusiasm into something productive. – albert Jan 29 '15 at 14:07

That's already on-topic on Programmers. – Martin Schröder Feb 13 '15 at 16:29

up vote 11 down vote

added by Carpetsmoker Jan 22 '15 at 12:12

up vote 11 down vote

added by Carpetsmoker Jan 22 '15 at 12:14

Eh, does this question really stand as a real question as is? AFAIK, the Apache Software License clearly has the word "software" in it, defining its scope, and so does GPL, as defined in its preamble: "The GNU General Public License is a free, copyleft license for software and other kinds of works." I guess answers would likely be to "RTFM", which isn't optimistic here. – Unihedron Jan 24 '15 at 7:22

@Unihedron, just because the answer is rather simple, doesn't mean it's not a good fit. I can see it working as a question. – overactor Jan 24 '15 at 9:00

I'm out of votes at the moment, @Unihedron, but I agree with @overactor - this is a great question (and there are licenses for just this type of thing out there (or you could write your own)) – warren Jan 27 '15 at 15:05

@Unihedron Well, the Apache license is just one ;-) Perhaps the question could be phrased better, but what I want to ask is more like 'what license can I use for non-software things?' (I thought that would be too broad); I don't like the CC licenses for being too complicated and like the brevity of for example the MIT license... Also, what about software programs that contain art resources (logos etc)? – Carpetsmoker Feb 2 '15 at 14:24

@Unihedron you'd be surprised at the number of people who slap software licenses on non-software things! – congusbongus Mar 2 '15 at 23:56

up vote 10 down vote

added by overactor Jan 19 '15 at 10:03

I think, you are unfairly serial downvoted here, so you got all of my protest upvotes now. – peterh Jan 24 '15 at 13:26

this is a marketing question - which would apply to any piece of software, open or closed – warren Jan 27 '15 at 15:06

@warren, I feel like marketing an open source product (and company) is different from marketing in general, it seems not everyone agree though. Maybe the question could be reworded? – overactor Jan 27 '15 at 15:33

I originally downvoted this, but now upvoted it. I wanted to add an example question that's very similar: "I've spent a lot of time making an open source project that's better than many similair projects (IMHO), but almost no one seems to be using it; how can I attract some attention to my project?" ... Especially the wording of 'convince people' are off-putting to me... but perhaps my suggested phrasing can help you making this question better :-) – Carpetsmoker Feb 19 '15 at 23:16

@Carpetsmoker - based on the question edits, I agree it should be reopened – warren Feb 20 '15 at 16:44

show 1 more improvement suggestion

up vote 10 down vote

added by Philipp Jan 20 '15 at 8:32

up vote 10 down vote

added by peterh Jan 20 '15 at 11:59

up vote 10 down vote

added by peterh Jan 20 '15 at 12:00

up vote 10 down vote

added by peterh Jan 20 '15 at 12:02

up vote 10 down vote

added by peterh Jan 20 '15 at 12:02

up vote 10 down vote

added by Thijser Jan 20 '15 at 14:23

Think open source devices such as the arduino – Thijser Jan 20 '15 at 14:23

up vote 10 down vote

added by warren Jan 20 '15 at 14:42

	@PeterHorvath - how would you improve it? – warren Jan 27 '15 at 15:01
	I removed my downvote, but my close I can't. Somehow it is too long and hard to interpret, but imho it is soon ontopic. – peterh Jan 30 '15 at 23:23

up vote 10 down vote

added by James Jenkins, edited by Philipp Jan 22 '15 at 16:39

What do you mean with "elevated roles"? – Carpetsmoker Feb 23 '15 at 0:08

@carpet I think he means moderators on the forum/IRC and people with commit access for the repo – ratchet freak Feb 24 '15 at 23:59

@ratchet correct. – James Jenkins Feb 25 '15 at 1:13

up vote 10 down vote

added by overactor Jan 21 '15 at 7:11

up vote 10 down vote

added by Carpetsmoker Jan 22 '15 at 12:13

up vote 10 down vote

added by massonpj, edited by Robert Cartaino Jan 23 '15 at 16:37

up vote 10 down vote

added by Unihedron Jan 24 '15 at 7:17

How does the skill level of your users affect your development standard? Are you maybe referring to the skill level of your contributors? – Philipp Jan 26 '15 at 0:20

@Philipp: The audience target provides context of what the project is for and how much customization or technical requirements are required for using the published products of the project, which hints of the scale of it (to be really big). The essence of this question is "if it complicates collaboration" though - I've seen projects abandoning standards and automated tests just because it was harder for them to keep up with each other, hence this question. – Unihedron Jan 31 '15 at 8:27

up vote 10 down vote

added by overactor Jan 29 '15 at 7:16

	Obviously, more specific information would be needed in the body of the question. If anyone can think of information that should go in the title, let me know. – overactor Jan 29 '15 at 7:18
	I think you should explicitly name the licenses. So would it be really to broad, and warren will have right. – peterh Jan 30 '15 at 23:19
	This question is currently ambiguous - It can either refer to "Dual licensing my project with A and B" - which is an orthographic concept, you can license a project under as many ways you want, or "Sublicensing" - which is specific to terms of each licenses and is generally a bad idea because it generally stops protecting you. – Unihedron Jan 31 '15 at 8:31

up vote 10 down vote

added by Mark Feb 11 '15 at 2:06

I think this is an excellent question and would definitely upvote if I hadn't used my 5 votes yet. – overactor Feb 11 '15 at 7:15

up vote 10 down vote

added by Philipp Feb 16 '15 at 0:47

up vote 10 down vote

added by Philipp Feb 16 '15 at 0:50

up vote 10 down vote

added by delete Feb 18 '15 at 0:05

When I asked this question, I wasn't sure how to phrase the title. Hopefully you get my meaning though. – delete Mar 11 '15 at 2:13

up vote 10 down vote

added by delete Feb 18 '15 at 0:06

should be posted on softwarerecs.stackexchange.com – Aquarius_Girl Mar 9 '15 at 0:44

I think it could be posted on either or. – delete Mar 9 '15 at 0:53

This is another question to discuss about on meta it seems. It's not the best question (it is rather listy). But it is somewhat on-topic and is likely to be asked. – overactor Mar 10 '15 at 6:04

While GitHub is mainly used for open source, you can host private repos. So, while it fits here, I'd lean towards Software Recs. +1 regardless – Cole Johnson Mar 18 '15 at 15:33

up vote 10 down vote

added by Matthew Brown Feb 27 '15 at 21:59

Answering this question would require to know the licenses of the libraries and the license you want to license the project under, but I assume you would post these in the question body. – Philipp Mar 2 '15 at 15:11

Absolutely. For now imagine that the questions details a bunch of MIT, Apache, CC and GNU projects – Matthew Brown Mar 3 '15 at 11:38

up vote 10 down vote

added by Carpetsmoker Mar 1 '15 at 7:24

	Isn't this more a question dealing with law? – Cole Johnson Mar 18 '15 at 15:39
	@Cole Yeah, it deals with law ... But also open source I think? – Carpetsmoker Mar 18 '15 at 15:40

up vote 10 down vote

added by user4098326 Mar 7 '15 at 8:09

up vote 10 down vote

added by Greg Chase Mar 7 '15 at 11:29

	Perhaps this should be two different questions? – kdopen Mar 17 '15 at 17:32
	Open to the idea. – Greg Chase Mar 18 '15 at 0:02

up vote 10 down vote

added by curiousdannii Mar 8 '15 at 0:10

up vote 10 down vote

added by curiousdannii Mar 8 '15 at 0:12

up vote 9 down vote

added by warren Jan 20 '15 at 14:17

@PeterHorvath - this is a general question, with the specific example in brackets to indicate what a specific form may look like. See a similar example here. Specific examples are precisely what such a proposed site will need :) – warren Jan 26 '15 at 14:31

I think, overreactors example questions are too broad, while yours are too localized. But down removed. – peterh Jan 30 '15 at 23:26