Producing Open Source Software

Fogel wrote the operational manual for running open-source projects, drawing on his experience as a core Subversion developer and his years observing how projects succeed and fail. The book covers everything from choosing a license and setting up version control to managing volunteers, handling difficult personalities, and making governance decisions that scale. Now in its third edition and freely available at producingoss.com, it remains the most practical guide to the organizational side of open source — the side that determines whether good code survives contact with a community. Fogel treats open-source management as a craft with learnable principles, not as a mystery or a matter of charisma. For product leaders who interact with open-source communities or who want to open-source their own work, the book provides a framework grounded in decades of accumulated practice. It is the rare management book that is both honest about human difficulty and genuinely useful.