Succeeding with Open Source

Assessing Product Longevity

A key indicator of product maturity is how long it has been around. Products that have been available for long periods of time tend to be more mature. Early releases of products are notoriously buggy, reflecting the fact that the products are used (and misused) in ways the developers never imagined. These uses of a product exercise it in ways that the developers never anticipated; product weaknesses are exposed in real-world use that did not manifest during development and testing. In essence, the product is stressed by being exposed to the real world and that stress turns up bugs that need to be fixed before the product is ready for production environments. This process plays itself out over the first few releases ...