Best practices and (very) small projects
Session Abstract
Most open source software is not maintained by a large community but by a single person in limited time. For them, best practices developed in large projects might not be feasible to apply – but what can be done instead?
Session Description
Most open source software is not maintained by a large community but by a single person in limited time. Hobbyist maintainer projects have previously been discussed from the perspective of security risks and reliance of complex ecosystems on single actors (cue XKCD 2347 „Dependency“), but this talk will focus the tools and work methods at the hand for these developers in regards to community building, usability and documentation.
A lot of practices that might be helpful to improve software imply the availiability of resources, most importantly team with diverse, complementary skills. But most maintainers do not have access to these resources.
I suggest that we need an awareness and appreciation of small project and a critical review of tools and work methods for their fit for the situation of small projects. I will use examples from usability to show the problems of many commonly recommended methods as well as alternatives that are better suited.
