Question : What’s the most effective way to attract a critical mass for an open source, social software coding project?
I’m in Austin, looking to start an open source project to build a Context Management System.

Web 1.0 was the age of content, and hence the Content Management Systems (Vignette, et al). Web 2.0 is the age of context. Learning to manage context, and letting go of content, is a whole new ball of wax.

The purpose of the project is to allow ad-hoc formation of peer groups for small and large scale projects. In a real sense, this is a boot-strapping project. If such a thing existed, I’d be using it right now to create this project — but of course, this project would then be unnecessary, and I would be able to focus my attention on other issues of interest, like: adult developmental stages, emergence, cultural transformation, etc.

People in Silicon Valley just advertise that they are having a coding party. People in Central Texas barely grok del.icio.us. How can we best close the gap?
open source project management

Best answer:

Answer by oj
I guess starting with a minimal stable prototype to attract interest. Generally open source developers join these projects to improve their skills doing something they think is hot or one that interests them. And then if the idea is good and solves some problems, people might find it interesting and want to contribute/build over it.