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Open Source is one person

(opensourcesecurity.io)
433 points LawnGnome | 2 comments | 28 Aug 25 01:54 UTC | HN request time: 0.438s | source
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didgetmaster ◴[28 Aug 25 14:11 UTC] No.45052400[source]▶
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?

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1. ashleyn ◴[28 Aug 25 14:42 UTC] No.45052805[source]▶
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.
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2. account42 ◴[28 Aug 25 15:32 UTC] No.45053492[source]▶
I don't think this is a good example though as the "sordid" part also made the project toxic for anything that might have otherwise chosen to take it on.