If you set your code free, it will gain a life of it’s own!
I was googling my self the other day (what, you don’t do it?) and I stumbled onto something interesting. I found few results pointing back to some source code on the github. This intrigued me because I have never really used git, or set up a project on github.com. And yet, there was some source code there with my name attached.
Lo and behold, the code was actually from my JTwitt project. I started it back in April of last year, and mentioned it sporadically on the website. I didn’t really get far with it. I implemented basic, bare-bones functionality that allowed me to send and receive updates to and from Twitter. Then I got busy with some other things, and sort of let it sit there. I haven’t touched the code in ages.
And yet, somehow it found it’s way into a Present.ly application for Android. These guys actually did a great job cleaning up my sloppy code, and making it work with their application. I’m glad I was able to contribute to their project, if ever so slightly. This, ladies and gentlemen is the beauty of the open source movement. If you set your code free, someone will find use for it, and will maintain it for you. I love it!
Now I’m thinking about dusting off this stale code, and starting working on it again. I could probably integrate a lot of the changes and fixes the presently guys did back into my code, to make it more better. :) Maybe…
Wow, that’s pretty cool! Too bad I don’t have any code to share :P Maybe someday…
I’m curious, what license did you release it under? And do you think it matters if it’s released under the GPL or under a BSD-like license?
I LOVE when I see my Free code end up in surprising places. To find it, usually use one of the code search engines. Shown in the post below:
http://coreygoldberg.blogspot.com/2008/07/searching-for-your-open-sour ce-code.html
I have several proof-of-concept style projects that I have done in my spare time in the last few years that I’ve always though about just throwing up on google code under one of the open source licenses. I probalby will never extend my code past the initial work and maybe someone else will decide to take it futher. It might be fun to see if anything will come of it after a year or so.
@Morten: jtwitt is under GPL v2, same as the one on github.
@Dax: Throw it on github, then others can easily fork it, and you can pull back in the changes you like. Then set your ohloh account to load it, and you can track stats and see things like your comment ratio.
@Luke: Spend any time looking at git since you said you might in April? Based on your posts I think you’d like it, and if you need a hand feel free to email me directly.
@Morten: Kenny is right, most of my projects are under GPL.
The main difference between GPL and BSD is whether or not proprietary projects can take your code, modify it and compile it into their binaries without giving you any credit (other than not removing the attribution comments from the original code). GPL forces people to give the code back to the community. So I prefer it. :)
@Kenny: Nope, haven’t really used git yet. I sort of decided that my next project (whatever it shall be) will go on github and I will force myself to learn it by doing. :)