Episode notes: https://threedots.tech/episode/history-of-watermill/

Quick takeaways

Solve real problems first - successful open source projects start by addressing actual needs, not by looking for problems to fit a solution
Keep breaking changes minimal - Watermill stayed on v1 for 6 years with no breaking changes in the core library, building trust with users
Examples and documentation are crucial - provide real-world examples with automated tests, not just simple “hello world” demos
Promotion matters - creating a great library isn’t enough; you need to actively share it through conferences, blog posts, and communities
Be patient with growth - Watermill took 7 years to reach 8,000 stars; overnight success in open source is rare

In this episode, we share the story of how Watermill, our event-driven library for Go, grew from a side project to a popular open source library with over 8,000 GitHub stars and 100+ contributors.

We discuss the key decisions and strategies that helped make Watermill successful, from focusing on solving real problems to maintaining backward compatibility and building a community around the project.

Watermill documentation — our open-source event-driven architecture library for Go
Watermill repository
Go Event-Driven training that complements Watermill
Real World Examples

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