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The reason for asking this question is to get a good idea about how best to present an open source project for my own projects. How can one best make a project attractive to potential new users and/or developers? Clearly projects vary in nature and scope so when answering it may be necessary to qualify any suggestions which are contingent on these factors.
It would also be interesting to see some good examples of the best presented projects out there!
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Here are some things that I look for on the landing page of an open source project, in approximate order of priority
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Explain what it does, probably also by explaining the problem it solves. If you can do that in big type (somewhere between the size of a Stack Overflow question heading and the text of the actual question) in 2-3 sentences, so much the better, you can link to the "learn more" page where you do the deep dive.
Make it very easy to download a copy and get started. (A big "download now" link is good. MoFo did this very well with the Get Firefox site and that pattern has spread appropriately. If it's a package install e.g. a Ruby gem, spell out the steps.)
Show where people can go to ask questions, and/or the documentation. You do have documentation, right? (Or you're working on it?)
Beyond that, link to the necessary stuff: code repository for those who want to browse, a more detailed "about" page (that might be part of the documentation), list of contributors (might also be part of the documentation) but the big part is to answer Why and How as succinctly as you can.
Basically, that's the story. Your first page is the first slide or two of your presentation.
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