Several different types of open-source projects exist. First, there is the garden variety of software programs and libraries, which consist of standalone pieces of code. Some might even be dependent on other open-source projects. These projects serve a specified purpose and fill a definite need. Examples of this type of project include the Linux kernel, the Firefox web browser and the Apache OpenOffice office suite of tools.
It is hard to run an open-source project following a more traditional software development method like the waterfall model, because in these traditional methods it is not allowed to go back to a previous phase. In open-source software development requirements are rarely gathered before the start of the project; instead they are based on early releases of the software product, as Robbins describes.…
