Ask HN: How much time do you spend on “marketing” your open source projects?

1) I started it because it was simply a personal CSS framework I was using myself to kick start my projects, and I wanted to share it around.

2) People found it through various websites, organically I guess.

3) I initially only posted it here on Hacker News I think. Then it was trending on Github, and other people posted it on Reddit, and other websites like Codrops.

4) I've never really tried to market Bulma. It's just a solution to a problem I had, and it also happens to solve a lot of other developers problems.

I think if your open source project solves a common issue, people will eventually find it. I discover lots of valuable tools when trying to code something.

If you need a strategy, just copy what a successful startup would do: solve a problem that lots of people have. An open source project just happens to solve a problem you personally have, and you assume others will to, so you share that knowledge.

I develop open source systems in my work, partly for internal use but also to help grow the ecosystem our firm is in, and to make a name for ourselves.

We don't market heavily right now because our documentation is sparse so more users means more support.

I think working seriously on documentation is the primary way to market open source, actually.

That means not only API references but appealing and well designed READMEs and changelogs, tutorials, blog posts, etc.

Also having a chat where people can get involved and ask questions.

Beware that users are not only fun to have. They're also a liability in that you kind of have to help them and care about them!

I've started it quite literally to scratch my own itch: after having upgraded to a newer OS X, I found out that my favorite torrent client does not launch anymore. I've already been thinking about starting my own OSS project for some time (I contribute to a number of OSS as part of my job), so the decision came naturally to me.

It was clear to me upfront, that at some point the project will become too large for one person to take care of everything, and I will have to look for co-maintainers. So from the very beginning I've been spending a lot of time writing documentation, examples and polishing README, and of course paying a lot of attention to overall design "quality".

All of these things paid off, and each posting, be it on Reddit, StackOverflow, Quora or HN, received some attention, stars and downloads. People have started to post bugs and questions, and this contributed considerably to my motivation to continue working on the project.

In August I've added a GIF animation of the CLI component to the README and submitted a yet another ShowHN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14911372. It was a blast! The project received several hundred of stars over the course of two days, and the feedback was also very insightful and helpful.

> do you think it's unfair to just work on something you like but never take the time to get the word out

I honestly believe, that this is in fact an obligation for the author to get the word out, IF the project might be of interest to someone besides the author himself. Otherwise, why make this software open source in the first place?

I'd also recommend the following read for a more step-by-step advice on marketing of amateur OSS projects: https://blog.cwrichardkim.com/how-to-get-hundreds-of-stars-o....

2,3) People mostly have known about this project. There are a lot of old blog posts. One advantage of a project being 10 years old is people may not have used it, but they have heard of it so when they (or someone they know) need it we come to mind.

4) Unfair? that depends. There are a lot of open source projects that are useful to exactly one person. If this is your project it is unfair to waste every bodies time marketing something they will not need. If you cannot honestly say the project is useful to someone else the time spent on marketing is a waste. In particular a lot of projects are started despite an existing project doing similar things (often as a fork), it is a lot of work to give the new project something that is compellingly better for more than just you.

On that note, I'll note that icecream and distcc do similar things. I have spoken to the maintainers of distcc and we agree with the principal that the features of icecream should be ported into distcc and then icecream killed. However since we forked distcc has got their own versions of our features. There are specific cases where only one way works, while the next the other way is the only one that works. As such I don't think we will ever port back despite a desire to do so.