1,000 GitHub Stars Later

Long time ago I set myself a goal to create a useful Open Source project for the NodeJS ecosystem, boasting 1,000 GitHub stars.

The plan was simple. I was about to create the project in one month, then the project would gain popularity over the next few months.

It wasn’t a genius project to begin with. I had neither enough knowledge about the problem area, nor the resources needed. So I started cutting corners and shaping the design goals.

Well, it did not happen after the first few months, neither with the first project, nor with the second one, or after the first, second or even the third year.

At this point the logical question would be: Why would anyone spend so much of his spare time pursuing such a high goal?

Good question. Lets say over a few things that we all know:

1. Open Source is made by people who need their own problem solved. These people write software for themselves (first), to make their own life easier. They are the first to use it in their personal projects and in production. They gladly eat their own dog food.
2. Open Source is made by people who want to learn something new. That’s the reason why they look like fools who work for no money, because they have another currency as well, called knowledge.

Knowledge can be acquired in your day to day job, but that’s rarely enough. And it’s not only about the knowledge either, in the end some of these Open Source projects are not just toys. They end up being used by thousands of people all over the world, just like you and me.

Nature stays always in balance. People being part of it make no exception. When a man have certain disadvantages he inevitably develops other qualities, to balance his own disadvantages. But these qualities are not necessarily positive. If they are not being utilized they can be even negative, not only a passive ones.

So it’s up to each one of us to develop our own positive qualities for ourselves first. The rest will notice it easily.

Without words.