The "Strange Loop" conference was held recently, and I'm picking my way through YouTube recordings of talks, looking for interesting stuff.

Rebuilding The Cathedral talks about FLOSS maintainership. In 1999, Eric S. Raymond's essay The Cathedral and the Bazaar talked about the difference between traditional, centrally-planned software development and the amazing, egalitarian, decentralized future of FLOSS software that was about to descend. Nearly 20 years later, we know things didn't work out that way: only a tiny fraction of FLOSS projects have any kind of "bazaar" culture, and the vast, vast majority of them have only a single maintainer. The vast, vast majority of contributors only contribute once and then move on, rather than hanging around to share the maintainership load.

Somewhat frustratingly, the talk doesn't really have any particular insights about what a "healthy" FLOSS project should look like, if not a Raymondian bazaar, or even what healthiness is, in this context. Nevertheless, I appreciated the wake-up call and I'll try to have a more open mind about what constitutes "success" for the projects I follow and whatever I might work on myself.