How do you create a successful free or open source software project?

There are two parts to success:

Deployment growth: One publishes software to see it used. Even from the minimalist view point of, “It was useful to me; it might be useful to you.” But as the software is used, it reflects the dynamic nature of software, and as a solution to a problem, it gets used in new ways to solve new problems. This leads to the second part of the success formula -- contributions.

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