🙋Know the goals of an OpenSource project

There are so many Open-Source distributions, They all have certain underlying goals, philosophies. Its essential to know them and consider them in making choices of components for your products. An open-source project might have lot of traction, community growth, does not mean if a part of it fits product's needs, it is the right choice. If project is headed in a direction which is not inline with product, it is highly likely that this open-source component will become the achilles heel in product during its life. e.g. which linux distro to use as baseline for your product ? this decision should not be taken lightly and least without understanding many factors, but please add another metric to it, I am sure it will help in improving the quality of decision.