Going Open-Source

I gave this talk at MalagaMobile in March 2022, and later at Copenhagen Cocoa, on my experiences of creating open- and closed-source projects, and how to get started with your first project.

Abstract

Some of the best software is created in the open, and maintained by people joined in their effort to solve problems and share their work for the good of the entire world.

Open-source software comes in many shapes and sizes, from operating systems like Linux to crucial tools like cURL and tiny hobby projects only used by a handful of people.

Regardless of your ambitions, the first steps can be scary. Where and how do you start? How do you publish the code, and how do people use it? And what the heck are pull requests?

Don’t worry, this talk has you covered! We’ll look at how to get started, when a good opportunity to do so may be, and things you should consider when getting started with a new project.

We’ll look at how to set up a project with the Swift Package Manager, how to write documentation with DocC, and how to automate things.

The talk focuses on Swift, Xcode and GitHub, but most topics and discussion points are universal.