Picking an open source project for your use case is not easy. We have listed some vital aspects that you need to look into to choose the right tool for you.
In the world of software development, there is a progressive division, better known as the open source community. The open design and development concept helps everyone through a multitude of available open source projects. Consequently, users don't have to create projects that have already been developed by another community member.
With a mix of developers contributing to open source projects, there is a variety of experience and expertise clubbed together. Therefore, tinkering projects multiple times makes them more secure and robust. However, not all open source projects are created equal.
These projects vary in terms of security and agility. Thus, choosing the correct one for your use case can get tricky. To help you work out this problem, you can focus on the following key areas:
Users
User statistics are a great indicator of how good an open source project is. If a large number of people are using the project, it is usually a good sign. Other indicators are the number of downloads, reviews, comments, contributors, forks etc.
The important thing is to deep dive into who the users are. Is the development team using their own project? That is a good sign for you to pick it up.
Builders
Are the contributors participating avidly? Pushing changes to open source projects regularly is essential. If the developer team or other community members are not actively involved in updating and improving the project, then it is not worth choosing.
The stakeholder activity associated with an open source project is an excellent indicator of its relevancy. So keep an eye out for that!
Documentation
The open source project you want to adopt or implement must come up with regular release updates. Changelogs show project upgrades and the improvements that came into play with every change. Project lifecycle activity and documentation help determine how secure and updated the code is.
Moreover, the documentation must be well written and easy to understand to deem it an adequate open source project. Readable code is simpler to build upon, secure and fix.
Compatibility
Amid your hunt, do not lose track of your goals. The project in question must be in line with the goals you are trying to achieve. You must be mindful of certain aspects to determine compatibility between the two. They are technologies in use, licensing and code languages.
Using Open Source Project
It is not necessary to find the exact match for your use case. But that's where the flexibility of open source is of significance. You can still utilize the project with modifications of your own.
You must be responsible for your copy of the project. Moreover, if you are an upstream contributor, do not fret about improving on it. The value of the open source community is to give back. So maintaining the health of the project in use is crucial.
VEXXHOST and Open Source
VEXXHOST has long been involved with the open source community and is an active member of the OpenStack Foundation. Among the plethora of open source projects available out there, we provide Managed Zuul and Kubernetes Enablement as solution offerings.
Know more about our history with OpenStack and our involvement with the community.
