Strategy for Finding a Problem for OSS: With Real Examples

Open Source Connect Global 2026: https://www.osconnect.org/

Transcript

1. Strategy for Finding a Problem for OSS: With Real Examples Chikahiro Tokoro
2. Do you want to create an OSS project? But not sure what to build? Let’s find a meaningful problem to solve!
3. Important but not urgent: Generic enough: Where existing solutions are not sophisticated: Eisenhower Matrix (wikimedia) Try to find a something... Often not implemented, but worth to solve High potential for broad adoption A good reason to build by your own 🛠
4. A real example: Generating Anonymized Database
5. "To preventing the database incident” Important but not urgent: Generic enough: Where existing solutions are not sophisticated: can lead a severe damage (important) but not often to happen (not urgent) can be found similar problem in many place None of OSS following UNIX philosophy nor in good code quality another way to solve (e.g. linter )
6. Another real example: Find a problem in real life joker1007 - GitHub
7. “To identify which line is causing the SQL” activerecord-cause yaml_vault rukawa Another real example: Find a problem in real life etc… “YAML file to containing sensitive info with AWS KMS” “Control chains of batch process” crono_trigger “Asynchronous Job Scheduler for Rails”
8. Co-owner & CTO of 37signals Ruby on Rails DHH (David Heinemeier Hansson) Another real example: Find a problem in real life ・ ・ ・
9. Another Strategy: Find your own problem Ruby programming language Matz (Yukihiro Matsumoto) “I love programming languages” Follow the passion! 󰵗
10. Linux “Just for fun” Linus Torvalds & git Another Strategy: Find your own problem Follow the passion! 󰵗
11. Have Fun! https://chikahirotokoro.com Chikahiro Tokoro Any feedbacks are welcome