Andrey Sitnik, Evil Martians
How to Make a Popular Open Source Project
I work at
My open source projects
Nano ID
Browserslist
PostCSS
Autoprefixer
3 M
50 M
80 M
30 M
Downloads per month
The real list of my projects
52 non-popular and only 4 popular
Ты почему опенсорс не пишешь?
Часики-то тикают
Опенсорс надо писать пока молодой
Потом поздно будет
Что значит не хочешь?
Опенсорс все хотят
Дал Бог проект,
даст и PR
Halt and Catch Fire
“You must have an OSS project to get a job”
HR
The open source dream is a lie
Better ways to be popular
Articles
Talks
GitHub project ≠ good resume
1 month of work → few stars
vs
2 weeks → commit to Babel
Better ways to be popular
Create an app
Fix docs in popular projects
Use beta version → fix bugs
App from slides.com/keziyahlewis/deck
The best reason: change the world
My reason for Autoprefixer: kill Compass
My reason for PostCSS: CSS tools diversity
Stylelint
Lost Grid
cssnano
RTLCSS
My reason for Size Limit: reduce JS lib size
My main mistake: Russian-only announcement
My main mistake: did not mention anyone
Success formula
Project popularity =
Your popularity
Promotion
Benefits for users
Luck
+
+
+
Success formula has Popularity on both sides
Project popularity =
Your popularity
Promotion
Benefits for users
Luck
+
+
+
Advice 1: Create an English Twitter account
Waterfall of popularity
Previous success
Your English Twitter
Next projects
README.md is your main entry point
How people read docs
Bad project description is a main mistake
Svelte is cybernetically enhanced web apps
Svelte is JS framework with unique compiler
which generates smaller JS files
Not clear
First block of PostCSS
PostCSS is a tool for transforming styles with JS plugins.
These plugins can lint your CSS, support variables and mixins, transpile future CSS syntax, inline images, and more.
PostCSS is used by industry leaders including Wikipedia, Twitter, Alibaba, and JetBrains. The Autoprefixer PostCSS plugin is one of the most popular CSS processors.
Clear description
How it could be useful
Why it is important
Advice 2: make the description clear
It may take a few days
First block of Nano ID
A tiny, secure, URL-friendly, unique string ID generator for JS.
- Small. 141 bytes (minified and gzipped). No dependencies.
- Safe. It uses cryptographically strong random APIs and tests distribution of symbols.
- Fast. It’s 16% faster than UUID.
- Compact. It uses a larger alphabet than UUID (A-Za-z0-9_-).
Clear description
Difference from analogs
How to make a good description
You in the bar with friends.
”So, I created …”
And then cut it down 2-4 times
What do you think people read
What people actually read
Advice 3: More illustrations or code examples
Advice 4: More lists and bolds
Important parts are highlighted
Advice 5: Step-by-step starting guide
Be very specific
Help with choice
The main secret
How we think people choose frameworks
Rational choose across all options
How we think people choose frameworks
Rational choose across all options
False
How people really choose frameworks
Irrational choose across popular options
Advice 6: Show who uses your project
The most effective part of PostCSS description
PostCSS is a tool for transforming styles with JS plugins.
These plugins can lint your CSS, support variables and mixins, transpile future CSS syntax, inline images, and more.
PostCSS is used by industry leaders including Wikipedia, Twitter, Alibaba, and JetBrains. The Autoprefixer PostCSS plugin is one of the most popular CSS processors.
Advice 7: Speak about the project regularly
Advice 7: Speak about the project regularly
Hype as a solution for hype driven development?
Do we miss a big picture?
Andrey Sitnik, Evil Martians
Front-end innovation
is over
Front-end reminds me of the Spanish Empire
Columbus discovered America by mistake
John Vanderlyn: Landing of Columbus
Spain got a lot of silver
A Diego Rivera mural from the Palacio Nacional in Mexico City
But spent it for war and notables
The Defense of Cadiz against the English
And lost everything
Defeat of the Spanish Armada
S-curve of technologies
We are here
We are rich now (and it is OK)
Stagnation is a problem
The Defense of Cadiz against the English
We choose frameworks by stars & downloads
And it is bad
Moment
date-fns
The better way to choose dependencies
Moment
date-fns
Stars ≠ good support
How we defeated IE if we look on popularity?
The biggest ecosystem
Will we have anything after React?
We are proud of using React for static sites
We are proud of using styled-components
We use what opinion leaders tell us
Abnormal followers distribution
Abnormal followers distribution
Autoprefixer got Grid for IE feature
grid-template-rows: auto auto
Idea spread was slowed by a single key person
grid-template-rows: auto auto
To be clear
Hate Autoprefixer
The single person desides for the whole industry
Social elevators are broken
Popularity brings you popularity
Break the wheel instead of supporting it
Front-end is dying
Defeat of the Spanish Armada
We can create a new S-curve
Solution
We need an environment for next technology
Transition gap
1. Choose dependencies rationally
Because it has more stars
Because of hype
Because big company use it
Because opinion leader told you
Better ways to choose
- Search on npm
- Size bundlephobia.com
- Make your own benchmark
- Issues without answers
- Make a small demo
Big projects can ignore your problems
Small projects can fix your problem in a day
Maintainer’s motivation > stars
Local cafe
Network
vs
Patricia Ernsberger
Framework is not really important
2. Specific tools > universal tools
Static page
Svelte
Parcel
BEM
Web app
React
Webpack
zero runtime CSS-in-JS
3. Promote non-popular developers
< 7000 followers
Retweet more often
≥ 7000 followers
Think twice before retweet
Think twice before retweeting me too
≥ 7000 followers
How to create a new S-curve
4. Do not study only CS and math
Cryptography + Economy → Cryptocurrency
Cryptocurrency + Politics → EOS
5. Try to see the big picture
Our software violates privacy
Internet censorship
Open datasets
…
Metrics is not a silver bullet
Front-end is not the first
6. Front-end is dead. Dance on tables.
Thanks
DM me your open source
