[h2odragon]

Does it work for me? Then is a success.

Increasingly uninterested in releasing code, past that point; it now seems to imply obligations and goals I do not want.

One of my projects is maintained by others now (largely untouched i think). I had "begware" solicitations in it: in 5 years its drawn 8 donors to give $55 total. That counts as a fantastic success for that approach.

That one is a 3d printing / OpenSCAD library: the week after i released it, there were purchasable versions on all the "paid 3d library" sites with other peoples names and payment info on them. One of them did a takedown request on the original posting, even. That was certainly an indicator of positive reception, but dunno if one could call it a measure of success.

[treebeard5440]

I agree with “does it work for me, then it’s a success” to a certain extent. I am really happy with my project, it does what I needed it to do, and my company allowed me to open-source it. If that was all that happened I would still consider my project a success. What has been really enjoyable for me, however, is working with contributors and seeing developers use the tool. So I feel like - for me at least - there has to be more than just building and releasing it.

[simonblack]

Does it work for me? Then is a success.

Exactly. Open source projects do not rely on 'sales' to survive. If the project scratches MY itch, it really doesn't matter whether it scratches one other person's itch, or millions of other persons' itches.

It sometimes surprises me how many people have seen and even used my projects.