Question

We have a pretty cool little web framework that we have used successfully on dozens of client projects. We are planning to release this software to the community. However, I am wringing my hands about what should/should-not go on a new open source software project page. What are the things the site must have? Docs? A Wiki? A link to download? What else?

And, a related but possibly different question is how do we begin marking release numbers. All we use internally is the SVN stamp. Is there a good way to determine when to start calling something version 0.9 versus 1.0 and 1.1 and so-on?

Answer 1

You can get an idea of what’s required by what open source project hosting sites provide:

• A web site which acts as the ‘one stop shop’ for the project
• Docs, potentially in wiki form
• A source repository allowing browsing, anonymous checkout, and authenticated and authorised commits
• Issue tracking and new feature requests

As for version numbers… I don’t think anyone’s worked out the best way of doing that yet 🙂 With a bare minimum of thought, I’d consider:

• v1.0 should be ready for production use
• Major version number changes can completely lose backward compatibility (if necessary – hardly a goal though!)
• Minor version number changes should usually be mostly compatible – deprecating is probably better than removing/renaming bits of API
• Smaller-than-minor version number changes should only include minor functional additions (if any) and bug/performance fixes