BizCast #4 – Open Source Project Selection Part 2 with Joel Confino

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In Part 1, Joel discussed licensing models.  In this episode, Joel and Ken talk about the other criteria in his selection process.

Criteria

  • License model
  • Code Quality
    • JavaNCSS – Free tool (and maven plugin) to analyze lines of code / number of methods, MCCabe metrics etc…
    • JDepend – analyzes and checks for cyclic dependencies
  • Runtime Analysis
    • Do a performance test – check CPU, memory, I/O peaks, etc…
  • Design
    • Grade all software by reading the code, checking for code smell, etc. Set a short timebox to see if you can review the code and see structure, organization, etc…
    • Pay attention to Bob Martin’s four design principles
    • Can you understand how they organized the code?
  • Project Velocity
  • Pedigree
  • Community
  • Market Penetration – ohloh.net is a good tool here
  • Documentation quality – can you read the docs?  Read the code and understand how the docs relate?  Dev, admin, test, install, etc.?
  • Support
  • Functionality and Features

Enjoy the podcast!

Joel and Ken