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Submission Guidelines
This list is for projects that are directly used, not projects with the sole purpose of building another project. Development technologies like frameworks or databases are not allowed. Enterprise systems like CRM or marketing are currently not allowed but may be considered once the core of the list is ironed out.
Definitive-opensource has a rigorous vetting process that involves comprehensive research into a project.
We continously monitor projects on the list and will immediately remove projects that no longer fit the criteria.
Criteria
To avoid the clutter trap that many other lists succumb to as they scale, only the best software is included. But "best" is relative. It's mostly guaged based on the following criteria - keep in mind that there can be exceptions.
🛑 - This requirement cannot be bypassed.
⚠️ - Not a hard value: research based requirement
✅ - Open ended
📔 - Just a note
1. Popularity
🛑The minimum star count is 1k.📔Projects with over 5000 stars are preferred.
2. A Foundation
⚠️A contributor count of 5. Quality is more important than quantity here. A small team can pass if they are solid and dedicated.⚠️The project should have stable roots, as in no internal conflicts or major disagreements that impact development.
3. Activity
🛑A commit in the last 6 months⚠️The project should have consistent activity and development.
4. Future Proof
⚠️The project should have a clear roadmap or general path and the means to deliver this goal
5. Quality
✅The project should be competent and decently good quality.
What is Open Source?
The project should abide by the Open Source Definition (OSD). The project's license should be an OSI Approved License. If not, it should fall under the OSD.
Projects Not Hosted on GitHub
Most major projects hosted elsewhere have GitHub mirrors. Blender's mirror has 14.7k stars, Krita's has 8k, Gimp has 5.3, etc. The star counts of those mirrors are used. In the rare case that the project does not have a GitHub mirror, other measures will be taken to analyze product popularity.
Examples
1. PearCleaner
- Description: A free, source-available and fair-code licensed mac app cleaner
- Stars: 4.2k
- Contributors: 7
- Explanation: On the surface PearCleaner woudn't fit with a relatively small amount of stars and just seven contributors. But research brings about the following conclusion: PearCleaner is one of two major app cleaners for MacOS - the other being the proprietary AppCleaner. Despite just 7 contributors, they have been continuously pushing updates on a ~two week interval. They have a solid roadmap for future updates and have been delivering on those promises.
Result: ✅
2. Marktext
- Description: A simple and elegant markdown editor, available for Linux, macOS and Windows.
- Stars: 48.1k
- Contributors: 144
- Explanation: Every part of this project passes the test... except for the fact that it's abandoned. It's still insanely popular but hasn't had a commit in 7 months and the last release was two years ago.
Result: 🚫
3. Zed Editor
- Description: Code at the speed of thought – Zed is a high-performance, multiplayer code editor from the creators of Atom and Tree-sitter.
- Stars: 52.3k
- Contributors: 753
- Explanation: Just about any software on this scale will make it onto this list. Zed Editor has a massive user base, a massive team, a solid roadmap, and the means to execute on those promises well into the future.
Result: ✅
4. AM
- Description: AppImage Package Manager: AppImage sandboxing, local and system installation, update all AppImages
- Stars: 618
- Contributors: 27
- Explanation: This is really tough one. The concept is extraordinary and it has a dedicated team working hard to bring their vision to reality. Even so, the project is fairly new and rough around the edges - and it falls behind on a hard-coded requirement: it has less than 1k stars. This goes into our prospective backlog for projects that just barely don't make it and will be monitored.
Result: 🧰