Canvas

Get a firsthand look at Canvas, an open source blogging platform built on Laravel 5.

Find out the market need that this project addresses, and how it's matured to be the FOSS application it is today. Totally new to developing your own open source work? Discover some tips and tricks as we walk through some pitfalls that you can find yourself in, as well as developing a strategic marketing campaign around your work so that it comprises a small ecosystem.

Transcript

1. CANVAS TODD AUSTIN PRESENTS
2. ABOUT ME TODD AUSTIN ▸ Husband/Dad (Arie & Anastasia) ▸ toddaustin.io ▸ Web Developer @ Robert Half ▸ Creator of Canvas: cnvs.io ▸ github.com/austintoddj ▸ twitter.com/austintoddj
3. LIVE DEMO
4. HOW TO OPEN SOURCE YOUR OWN PROJECT RULES OF THUMB ▸ Development will take longer than you think ▸ Your application HAS to solve a real world problem ▸ Not everything is going to be a success
5. HOW TO OPEN SOURCE YOUR OWN PROJECT PRE-RELEASE CHECKLIST ▸ Did you pick a good name? ▸ Release under your username or an organization? ▸ Does it have a clear description? ▸ Are there install instructions? ▸ Is there a simple example? ▸ Is there a demo link clearly visible in the description? ▸ Does it have those pretty shields.io badges? ▸ Does it have proper README, LICENSE and CONTRIBUTING files? ▸ Any pitfalls or common gotchas you should mention? ▸ What about a link to full documentation?
6. HOW TO OPEN SOURCE YOUR OWN PROJECT DEALING WITH CRITICS ▸ You will take criticism. The bigger your impact or popularity of your project, the more criticism you’ll need to deal with ▸ Respond calmly ▸ Don’t take it personally ▸ Manage stress ▸ Just keep swimming
7. HOW TO OPEN SOURCE YOUR OWN PROJECT OPEN SOURCE COMMUNITY ▸ It’s really amazing ▸ @talvbansal (United Kingdom) created a slick VueJS Media Library for Canvas immediately ▸ @reliq (Jamaica) refined much of the package integration in Canvas ▸ If you see rockstars offering help, give them the tools ▸ Give something back
8. HOW TO OPEN SOURCE YOUR OWN PROJECT MARKETING YOUR PROJECT ▸ Create a social media ecosystem ▸ Make a website/landing page ▸ Submit your project to various sites ▸ Blog about your experience ▸ Make your close friends star it on GitHub, tweet about it, and like it ▸ Answer relevant questions on support sites
9. HOW TO OPEN SOURCE YOUR OWN PROJECT BEING TRANSPARENT ▸ If all goes right, you will screw up ▸ Mistakes happen. We all make bugs and some of us eventually introduce those bugs into projects that aren’t ours ▸ Don’t hide the fact that you messed up. Acknowledge the fact that you made a mistake, fix it, learn from it, and notify whoever is involved
10. HOW TO OPEN SOURCE YOUR OWN PROJECT CUSTOMER SERVICE ▸ Thank everyone who asks a question ▸ Respond to GitHub issues and pull requests in a timely manner ▸ If you don’t have full-fledged documentation, at least use the GitHub Wiki feature ▸ Expect to spend A LOT of time in this phase
11. I was so attracted to your "Simple..." homepage messages and then the Install page hit me with a mass of coding requirements? This is classic marketing dissonance -- I expected one thing and was served up something else. (I wonder what the bounce rate on your service is after people hit the GET STARTED button? You might want to look into that.) I am a blogger. Not a coder. Decide whom your selling to, please. George Gonzalez-Rivas HOW TO OPEN SOURCE YOUR OWN PROJECT
12. Thanks for the words of insight George! You're right, clear marketing is one of the only sure-fire ways to guarantee success, so it's something we take very seriously with Canvas. For non-developers, yes getting everything up and running may be a bit of a challenge. More often than not, getting anything up (website, hosting, WordPress, etc...) will present challenges to those who aren't accustomed to it. For a developer, this should be very straight-forward. I understand where you see the disconnect, "Are we marketing to developers or non- developers?". Well, both really. If developers want a quick-and-easy blog, they've got it. If non-developers want a clean looking frontend/backend with all the bells and whistles Canvas bundles with, they've got it. If you like what you see and would want to spin up a Canvas installation, let me help you and I'll get it running for you to tinker with. Feel free to email me at austin.todd.j@gmail.com and we can get something working. Todd Austin HOW TO OPEN SOURCE YOUR OWN PROJECT
13. Rats! You've totally disarmed me with a polite and intelligent response. Good for you. I'd be happy to have you help me except that, if I remember/understood correctly, I need to have a server -- I presume this is self-hosted. I guess I'm a 'cloud guy'. So tell me what I'm not understanding… Ok. You probably don't have time to cover ALL that. Just stick to the highlights of what I don't understand. Thank You George Gonzalez-Rivas HOW TO OPEN SOURCE YOUR OWN PROJECT
14. HOW TO OPEN SOURCE YOUR OWN PROJECT BE PATIENT ▸ All good things take time to mature and come around ▸ Don’t get discouraged ▸ Learn from the process, enjoy the ride, and be persistent ▸ Fail often enough and you have to succeed eventually
15. THANK YOU Slides & Resources: ‣ speakerdeck.com/austintoddj/canvas ‣ twitter.com/austintoddj ‣ github.com/austintoddj ‣ austin.todd.j@gmail.com