Are most open-source software developed by hobbyists?
this post was submitted on 11 Nov 2024
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yes and they either become popular because of their usefulness and get organized like firefox/mozilla or they get co-opted by corporations and invariably enshitified like chrome/chromium
Firefox/Mozilla as an example is a bit of a stretch, given the fact that Mozilla Browser/Firefox is originally based on the open-sourced version of Netscape Navigator
very much a stretch, i was trying to relate the comment to current events and that was the closest thing i could come up with atm.
Fair enough
firefox is squarely in the "co-opted by corporations and invariably enshitified"
very true and as has happened to almost all projects once they get a critical mass of users and presence in the ecosystem.
There is a very large corpus of FLOSS software out there serving everything from individual itches to whole industries. Any project that is important to someone's bottom line is likely to have paid developers working on it but often alongside hobbyists.
The project I predominately work on is about 90% paid developers but from lots of different companies and organisations. Practically though the developers don't care about the affiliation of the other developers they work with but the ideas and patches they bring to the project.
That seems like a better system than say, Godot, who picks and chooses who is allowed to contribute.
100% of the open-source software i contributed to was developed by hobbyists so, using that information, you can infer from only that information that only hobbyists can develop open-source software
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the issue with this argument is that i don't care about who made the app when it doesn't work. that's why i still have a chromium based secondary browser, it doesn't matter that it's the work of a billion dollar company trying to get a monopoly when the website i'm on is broken. yes, the blame is on who made the website, not firefox. i still need to be able to use it somehow
Venn diagram go brrrr