In the long run, running an Open Source project is quite similar to creating a startup business, where you keep investing heavy efforts without a guarantee that you will end up with a large and successful exit. Many open source projects are never meant for a large audience or user group, but rather are intended only for oneself or a few others. Yet some open source projects, by intention, do end up with wide adoption and an active community around it. What makes them succeed? On the contrary, what causes other open source projects to fail and just increase entropy?
With 20 + million open source repositories on GitHub today, it is most likely majority of those projects will end up as “abandonware” i.e. huge amount of time & resources invested that never got traction.
I’ve been consistently contributing to open source projects for 8 years, starting them from scratch or joining existing communities. I found some patterns that help treating your project as a conscious attempt to make something big enough to live its own life. The real world is full of opportunities and threats, and being aware of them will help to make your project intentionally successful
