Ask HN: How does open source work?

> Does open source ever work that way?

Almost never. You need core contributors with an understanding of your problem-space if you want software to start materializing in a git repo.

In the rare few scenarios where people do make software like that, it's arranged by a formal group that sponsors contributors. If you don't have a strong central base of developers, it's incredibly difficult to review or coordinate the changes you want.

However, you might get somewhere writing a small proof-of-concept for your idea. If enough people like what you're doing, you might attract like-minded developers who are willing to help you out. Very little gets done without direct contribution, though.

You can write it yourself and then open source a minimal viable product. Or you can release software as open source and then use it for a client product to save three months on their project. The open source project is tangible demonstration of your skills ("so, you are a programmer?")

Maybe people add to it, maybe they don't. I liked the discipline of deploying to the Maven Central Repository this project I did to learn

https://github.com/paulhoule/pidove

Seems like you asking if you just throw out an idea on a GitHub page and then someone will come along and hand you a finished product.

Yeah, no, that won’t happen and isn’t at all how open source works.

There are two types of open source projects, small ones, and large ones.

Small ones have one, or maybe a few core contributors. These people do the bulk of the work and open the code up for a variety of reasons but often these are passion projects. The contributors work in their spare time, and generally the project has no or very little funding.

Then there are large open source projects, these typically have a foundation behind them. The foundation usually has big corporate donors and will have full-time paid contributors.