According to Github's Octoverse Report, for the first time in the last two years, over 7.8 million people contributed to Open Source projects (2019-21). This represents an 1125% increase in contributors over 2015.

As of October 1, 2021, Github had 254 million+ repositories. On the other hand, only 488 Open Source repositories have more than 1000 contributors. According to the statistics, there are only 5 or more contributors altogether in 237,917 repos out of 254 million repos. As we can see, there is a considerable difference between these two situations.

Increase in contributions demands more Maintenance and Community engagement.

Introducing a unique way to recognize Projects

After extensive research and feedbacks from Maintainers and Contributors, Aviyel is calling out for Open Source projects.

Considering the efforts and challenges of Maintainers and Contributors, we are introducing a program for Open Source projects to participate in exciting initiatives.

This is intended to activate and enhance the Community's productivity, as well as boost adoption, recognition, inclusion, value sharing, and community involvement.

Here are some projects that are already part of this journey

Medusa - Open Source Shopify alternative
BoxyHQ - Enterprise readiness made easy
TypeSense - Open Source Search
Hoppscotch - API testing platform
MobSF - Mobile Security Framework
DocZ - Documentation made easy
Chatwoot - Open Source Customer Support

How can you add your project? Head to the last section of this article.

Star a Repository?

Stars are the only visible metrics of the success of the community?

Adding "Stars to a repository" is one of the most popular ways to give back to the community. However, better approaches can be created because projects deserve more in order to make Open Source more prominent to the anyone and the projects' use-cases more identifiable.

I recently came across an interesting article by Richard Gall via The Newstack called “Can Open Source Sustain Itself without Losing its Soul” which highlights the core challenge of Open source.

Thanks to Justin Dorfman for bringing this out in his newsletter.

What is in for Open Source Projects?

Here are few tools that enable projects to create an accessible space for their communities.

Contributors activating Non-Code contributions and Sharing knowledge

1. Knowledge and Resource sharing

Share knowledge and Build meaningful relationships with contributors. The Community curates tutorials, thought Pieces, Integrations, and other useful resources.

FAQs (Frequently asked questions) is the unique space for anyone in the community to ask questions, search relevant answers that are verified by the project community.

For example, here are the FAQs for Docz and Resources curated by the Aviyel creator community exclusively focused on writing content.

Contributor Roadmaps

We help projects in launching contributor roadmaps, which provide a learning path for contributors on their journey to become successful contributors. Learn more about the structure of contributor roadmaps or check out the list of Roadmaps curated for the existing projects.

2. Platform for Community Engagement

xn--Aviyels-d36c in-built free live streaming events platform aims to bring more visibility and better experience in hosting Community Events, Community Spotlight, Office Hours, Live Coding sessions, etc.

Audiences can join the Mainstage and interact with Speakers at any moment throughout the event using the Platform.

Preview of in-built Live Streaming Platform

We wanted to make event moderating as simple as possible, so we included features like Backstage controls, polls, and an audience Q&A tool.

Highlights

3. Unlock Rewards and Incentives

Get early access to new way of recognizing the efforts of contributors, across code & non-code platforms, through badges, rewards and incentives.

Contributors will be able to unlock and share their open source contributions through a “gamified” experience.

Preview of Maintainer launching rewards system

Rewards are configured by the maintainer of the project which get points(seeds) to the contributors, adding to their reputation in the community.

Analytics for tracking contributor activity and rewards

Here’s an explanatory video of the rewards setup process

https://youtu.be/kP7IJ4TxQ1c

Guess what? Your community can now showcase open source contributions by sharing the Aviyel profile that keeps track of all their code and non-code efforts.

Public profile of the contributors

5. Community Dashboard

Community Dashboard helps the maintainer to monitor multiple project channels and gain useful insights on the overall and member-level activity.

6. Request Board

Request board is the place for all paid and voluntary requests around your project to be listed. From highlighting a feature request on GitHub to requesting content, your community can attempt these tasks and be rewarded.

Preview of Request Board for the Community

What does the community think?

From the Aviyel community

Tweet by Pedro, Maintainer of Fonoster, an Open source Twillio Alternative [https://twitter.com/Sandedro/status/1521151283931107331]

Duration of the Program

As long as it is Open source

How we are helping Open Source?

For Maintainers

Building a community, engaging with them and rewarding is made hassle-free for maintainers and community managers, as well as monitoring what the community needs and how it is expanding.

For Contributors

Improving the life cycle of an contributor by creating a collaborative space to learn, explore, share and get started on their journey by contributing to Open Source projects you love and also get early access to incentives and rewards.

For Developers

To efficiently adapt and use Open Source tools as a developer, and to provide more feedback to projects by finding relevant resources and drive discussions.

For Businesses

To discover, connect and adopt the appropriate set of Open Source tools and services.

How to become a part of this?

All you need to do is to Submit your Project here by Clicking “Add Project” button as shown in the snapshot below.

If you face any difficulty, please reach out to us on hello@aviyel.com.

Know of any project that you’d want to see on Aviyel? Leave a comment on this blog mentioning the project’s GitHub URL and we'll be delighted to have them onboard!

Sign up on Aviyel

Announcing program for Open source projects