Ask HN: How do you personally measure the success of your open source projects?

Increasingly uninterested in releasing code, past that point; it now seems to imply obligations and goals I do not want.

One of my projects is maintained by others now (largely untouched i think). I had "begware" solicitations in it: in 5 years its drawn 8 donors to give $55 total. That counts as a fantastic success for that approach.

That one is a 3d printing / OpenSCAD library: the week after i released it, there were purchasable versions on all the "paid 3d library" sites with other peoples names and payment info on them. One of them did a takedown request on the original posting, even. That was certainly an indicator of positive reception, but dunno if one could call it a measure of success.

I think, it is really good, when people respect you, for your work, but better if they respect and pay money.

In normal economy, most important metric, is how much people pay with free will.

This metric, sure could have correlation with likes, testimonials, good wishes, etc, but to measure these things correct, need much more effort, at least need to make good actual (not outdated) market research and know very good your niche, and compare with concurrent products, with comparable interfaces, etc, so you will not compare carrots with apples.

If you have questions, ask, I will try answer.

Evaluating it based on the money it makes is a recipe for disappointment.

Seeing a PR is always nice. That tells me someone is finding a use for it and is invested enough to help make it better.

I quickly abandon something if I have no use for it. Contributors will tell me if I should keep something around