Open source programmers have a set of values that it is good to take care about, especially when designing the community collaboration process.
Further, Outstanding Open source programmers find a good part of their reward in finding their tasks smart. In fact, most of the good os programmers easily trade financial advantage for other advantages such as 'fun', autonomy, or the ability of being recognized for their achievments by a community - which is quite smart in terms of job opportunities.
'Fun' is to be taken in the geek way here. Good developers have fun with creating and discovering smart concepts which make you wonder when you make out the perspectives of the concept.
On the mainlines, simple is beautiful way of attracting outstanding programmers is to make your source code a neat thing that good developers like. In order to do so, you might want to
- look at how the communities work, for example the python community, or the openlayers community - these are attractive communities, python is a generalistic community, whereas openlayers is a niche community in the field of web geomatics
- or you can hire an outstanding open source programmer; he will know how to package the product for the community, how to speak to the community, which mailing lists to setup, wikies, ticketing, etc
If you want to attract an outstanding open source programmer, here is what he might like:
- smart architecture & pretty implementation (eg. code)
- autonomy
- the ability to be creative (links to autonomy)
- the feeling of 'owning' what he does, the code is yours as he is his
- the ability to be visible across the community
- doing work that is being useful and/or much appreciated, either through the product or through the need for his skills
Finally, in terms of process, most of the success of the product popularity depends on the smart application of the open sourcer's motto: "Release early, release often".
That means you need to involve a community (even small) as early as possible in the process, and feed the community regularly with all the information. For example, thoughts can be exchanged with the community at a very early stage, eg. through a mailing list.
Release early, release often.
