Factors affecting diffusions in OSS

The following factors influence the rate of adoption of tools in subject communities. The theory is that certain aspects of a tool determine whether it will be quickly and widely used.

In this list, I attempt to bring together all factors which could have any influence on the rate of adoption, not only those likely to speed things up; my research is about finding out which ones make more of a difference and which ones can be safely ignored.

If you feel like adding your thoughts to a factor, please feel free. It would help if you'd prefix your comments with your name so that I know how to contact you if I have questions and so that I can give appropriate credit.

Also see ["madduck/adoptions"] for a list of tools which have or have not been adopted by developers of the Debian project. Feel free to extend this list as well.

I use the following categories for factors (please extend as you see fit):