What Makes for a Successful Open Source Project?

Many open source projects have been created that go on to have great success in terms of number of developers who use them, even large enterprises. But they don't function well commercially. It's perfectly possible to make a successful business around an open source project, but you're not selling the project,. For instance, you could be selling hardware. You could be selling manage services. There are actually half a dozen different common variations. The most important thing about it is to be realistic about how you get from a project to a product to a company.