Questions to "get inspiration" for new software is on-topic?

Question

I was thinking in a type of question like below:

I'm creating a new software and the features will be:

• feature 1;
• feature 2;
• ...

I'm developing it using the classical LAMP stack and now I'm looking for similar softwares (open-source) that could inspire me.

I'm looking for similar solutions that can bring clarity to my ideas.

I know that I can just ask for the software without mention my intentions to use it as inspiration, but I think that when I make it clear, the recommendations will be less focused in the features and functions of the software and the focus will be in other things like quality of code, engaged community, the technologies that I'm using, etc...

This type of question is on-topic here?

Answer 1

Just replace I'm creating a new software and the features will be with I am looking for a software with these features. Then just look at it: if that makes a good question, then don't hesitate to ask it :-)

Of course, telling us you want to create an app like this is OK, but we should not need that information to give you an answer.

So, if you ask us for an open source PHP/MySQL app that does captcha registration and OAuth login, that will probably be too broad, but if you add a few more requirement (like two-factor auth + LDAP synchronization) it would become a good question. As usual, the difficult part is too determine whether it is too broad or not enough, but that's true for any question.