Via http://wolphination.com/linux/:
...many Open Source projects fall apart before they see the light of day, mostly due to management reasons. You are receiving this directly from someone who has had an Open Source project disintegrate ... and has had to pick up the pieces, so the common pitfalls listed below are frighteningly genuine and happen to the most motivated of project managers. They all, ultimately, result in developer dropout and thus the death or dormancy of the project...
I would add to the list: lack of project justification. In the corporate world, the very first step in any project is to define the business need. Whenever decisions have to be made, the initial business reason behind the project is revisited to help determine what path to take. I find that many open source projects start with an idea that's really cool from a programming standpoint, and at the first sign of a challenge everyone asks, "what are we working so hard to accomplish again?" and starts to drop off. There has to be a reason to stick through the times when it just doesn't seem like any fun anymore.
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