I appreciate you can’t start an open source project with just an idea but would just a design be enough? Has anyone ever seen that done where a designer posts a design and developers join to start the coding?
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If you don’t find a programmer directly, like knowing somebody and “talking them into it”, then I don’t think that project will work.
I have seen many projects with complete designs and a framework, that never even generate a prototype.
It is difficult to attract developers to “dead” projects. So I wouldn’t suggest starting a (complete) design if you don’t have anybody to code, yet.
Of course, having a general architecture might help starting a team.
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I would say you’ve got a good start. If you have an idea of what the final product should look like and how each button / user interaction should be handled you’re probably closer than you think.. NOW, getting someone to jump on board and code it out might take some time and maybe never happen.. depending on your product, you might be able to “shop it around” and get some traction.
In my experience, the “final design” is often missing from the stakeholders project plan. In my opinion having the functionality “flushed out” so that the user interactions and program / process flow is laid out it’s a huge step in the right direction. If you are intent on going open source then create the documentation on how the final product should behave and you’ll be creating (i say this loosely) a user acceptance test which is much easier to develop.
I think the biggest challenge is getting a programmer (or community) on board because we are all probably working on our own projects which we think is the “next big thing”.
Or it would be a great project / opportunity for you to learn to code.