Congratulations to Matthias Stuermer (LOTS organizer / politician / entrepreneur) for having published his very carefully done master's thesis on "Open Source Community Building".

He tells us about the "optimal setup for a new open source project" and much more, and concludes with seven dos and don'ts for open source project leaders:

1. Do it for yourself.
2. Don't loose yourself in perfectionism.
3. Do accept others ideas and work, too.
4. Do communicate openly.
5. Don't speak of ideas but contribute solutions.
6. Do behave nicely.
7. Do serious marketing.

Number one seems questionable. (Why not do it for your users? For the greater good? :))
And all of these sound reasonable for any kind of project, don't they?