Software Stewardship

Brendan Graetz

How to be a good "maintainer" of your software project
In the context of open source software
Examples in NodeJs, and open source; but principles applicable

Detailed articles

blog.bguiz.com/articles/open-source-project-stewardship/general-oss-stewardship
blog.bguiz.com/articles/open-source-project-stewardship/nodejs-oss-stewardship

Services, Tools, Misc

Services

Github
Travis
Coveralls

Tools

Linting
Testing
Coverage
Documentation

Miscellaneous

Badges
Contribution Guidelines
Publicising

Services

Github

Git host:
- Distributed Version Control
Easy to use & fast
Pull requests
Sample: Profile

Travis

Continuous integration
Seamless integration with Github
Sample: Project | Build | Job | Config

Coveralls

Code coverage
Display & tracking only
- not CI
Seamless integration with Travis
Sample: Project | Report

Tools

Linting

Enforcing a code style
Use JsHint
Try It

Testing

Verifying that software works
Detect regressions
Use jasmine-node
Documentation

Coverage

Verify that tests touch all of the software
Identify dead code
Use Istanbul
Sample: Report

Documentation

Generate reference for users
Use YUIdoc
Sample: Published

Miscellaneous

Badges

Display the status
Build status: Travis
Coverage status: Coveralls
Package manager: nodei.co
Sample: Readme

Contribution Guidelines

Instructions
Expectations
Make it easy for others to contribute
Sample: Readme

Licence

Pick one
tl;dr Legal for neat summaries
Sample: Readme | GPLv3

Publicise

Twitter
Reddit
HackerNews
Sample: Tweet

Roadblock

Problem: ... but this will take too long.
Solution: Iterate, iterate, iterate!

smaller chunks
reasonable goals
maintain momentum

Crux

Software quality
Automation
Users --> Contributors

IRL!

github.com/bguiz/plugin-registry

Fin

blog.bguiz.com/articles/open-source-project-stewardship/general-oss-stewardship

Software Stewardship Brendan Graetz