Open Source is one person • Hacker News Board

Re: Open Source is one person

#51

Post by thisoneworks » Thu, Aug 28, 2025, 2:17 PM UTC

speakingmoistly wrote: post #3

[Relevant xkcd.]( https://xkcd.com/2347/ ) It's interesting to see the periodic rediscovery of "capitalism + technology relies on unpaid, voluntary labour", or as the author puts it, "Open source, the thing that drives the world, the thing Harvard says has an economic value of 8.8 trillion dollars". The one flaw that I see in the author's analysis though is that they don't seem to account for whether the packages acc…

You can frame the "unpaid voluntary labor" as "creative work" and it would start making a whole lot of sense. "Creative work thrives despite being unpaid in capitalist society."

Re: Open Source is one person

#52

Post by ChrisMarshallNY » Thu, Aug 28, 2025, 2:17 PM UTC

lo_zamoyski wrote: post #50

rauli_ wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not in Finland which has never been a communist country. His parents were just political activists who forced young Linus to participate in that as well. Linus has said that the experience made him very apolitical person.

Ah, whoops! I mistook Linus as the name of the Russian developer in question, whose name is actually Denis . (The whole first name thing in software circles kind of irritates me.)

Well, my use of his first name was kind of a joke. I apologize for the confusion.

There's very few folks in software that can be recognized uniquely, by their first name, but he's one.

Re: Open Source is one person

#53

Post by gausswho » Thu, Aug 28, 2025, 2:18 PM UTC

didgetmaster wrote: post #49

Has anyone seen any stats on what happens to a single maintainer project when said person is hit by a bus (or meets some other demise)? With that many data points, there should be enough of them by now to study it. Is the project taken over by another, single developer? Is it replaced by a similar project? Does it just go away?

I would love to see a diligently researched episodic series, every episode covering the transition of a popular open-source library/tool/app/site from one maintainer to the next.

And that's why I don't run Netflix.

Re: Open Source is one person

#54

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Aug 28, 2025, 2:32 PM UTC

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #33

tarvaina wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(Off topic.) Not only that, but Linus's parents were politically active communists and young Linus was a pioneer (like a boy scout but for communists). His father also lived in Moscow for several years on two separate occasions.

I don't think Russia (or China, either) has been truly communist, in a long time. Not sure there are any real communist nations left. It's one of those ideologies that looks good on paper, but falls apart, as soon as humans get added to the soup. Idealists never seem to account for base human nature.

[deleted]

Re: Open Source is one person

#55

Post by IAmBroom » Thu, Aug 28, 2025, 2:33 PM UTC

gausswho wrote: post #53

didgetmaster wrote: post #49

Has anyone seen any stats on what happens to a single maintainer project when said person is hit by a bus (or meets some other demise)? With that many data points, there should be enough of them by now to study it. Is the project taken over by another, single developer? Is it replaced by a similar project? Does it just go away?

I would love to see a diligently researched episodic series, every episode covering the transition of a popular open-source library/tool/app/site from one maintainer to the next. And that's why I don't run Netflix.

No, but I would happily pirate that.

Re: Open Source is one person

#56

Post by socalgal2 » Thu, Aug 28, 2025, 2:36 PM UTC

speakingmoistly wrote: post #3

[Relevant xkcd.]( https://xkcd.com/2347/ ) It's interesting to see the periodic rediscovery of "capitalism + technology relies on unpaid, voluntary labour", or as the author puts it, "Open source, the thing that drives the world, the thing Harvard says has an economic value of 8.8 trillion dollars". The one flaw that I see in the author's analysis though is that they don't seem to account for whether the packages acc…

I’d state that as capitalism + technology provides enough surplus money and time that people can work on hobbies

Re: Open Source is one person

#57

Post by skeeter2020 » Thu, Aug 28, 2025, 2:36 PM UTC

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #33

tarvaina wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(Off topic.) Not only that, but Linus's parents were politically active communists and young Linus was a pioneer (like a boy scout but for communists). His father also lived in Moscow for several years on two separate occasions.

I don't think Russia (or China, either) has been truly communist, in a long time. Not sure there are any real communist nations left. It's one of those ideologies that looks good on paper, but falls apart, as soon as humans get added to the soup. Idealists never seem to account for base human nature.

>> It's one of those ideologies that looks good on paper, but falls apart, as soon as humans get added...

Name an ideology where this doesn't happen.

Re: Open Source is one person

#58

Post by IAmBroom » Thu, Aug 28, 2025, 2:40 PM UTC

ysofunny wrote: post #17

blueflow wrote: post #4

If they had done an activity check they would have seen that half of all projects have zero maintainers.

software once "perfected" (working well enough long enough) needs NO maintenance. No cleaning. No calibrating/tunning. updating is a systemic issue, not a per-project matter

That is a hysterically wrong statement.

It is true of Solitaire, Minesweeper, Calculator, and Notepad, and probably about the same number of programs on other OSes. (Notepad has recently had an important expansion of functionality, but it didn't NEED that change.)

It's also true of some dinosaurs I have on my system, that copy DVDs and so forth.

It's not true of most other applications, nor can it be true, unless the app works in a sealed, unchanging environment.

Even then... Voyager 2 recently required a software upgrade, IIRC.

Re: Open Source is one person

#59

Post by IAmBroom » Thu, Aug 28, 2025, 2:41 PM UTC

kube-system wrote: post #29

hermannj314 wrote: post #20

The DoD is very efficient at finding something they are getting for free and convincing everyone it's in their best interest to pay a team of contractors for it.

The city of Troy kind of got fucked that one time by free shit.

Come on, tell me you don't want a pony!

Re: Open Source is one person

#60

Post by ashleyn » Thu, Aug 28, 2025, 2:42 PM UTC

didgetmaster wrote: post #49

Has anyone seen any stats on what happens to a single maintainer project when said person is hit by a bus (or meets some other demise)? With that many data points, there should be enough of them by now to study it. Is the project taken over by another, single developer? Is it replaced by a similar project? Does it just go away?

Closest example I could think of would be Hans Reiser/Reiserfs. It's a more sordid story than just getting hit by a bus, though. Ultimately the project just died.