How Open Source Projects Grow Huge
One of the core benefits of open-source projects is how anyone can contribute to the code or documentation. And as demonstrated by a series of visualizations produced by GitHub, when a project is opened up, the number of contributors explodes upwards. One of the most striking of GitHub’s visualizations is Roslyn, a .NET compiler platform originally produced by Microsoft. Two years ago, the software giant made the platform open-source. Almost immediately, interest (in the form of pull requests, pushes, and issue comments) spiked: “Successful open source projects include code and documentation contributions together with conversations about these changes,” read the blog’s accompanying commentary. “Offering a place for people to report problems, ask questions, and suggest fixes or improvements are also a core part of any project's success.” To which most open-source advocates would say: duh, of course. But it’s another thing entirely to see the seismic effect on a project’s activity when it’s open-sourced for the first time. If the project itself provides significant utility, and it's hosted on a repository like GitHub, chances are good it'll draw attention.