The cult of personality thrives in JavaScript, even if its most prominent developers are reluctant to acknowledge it, perhaps because this attitude clashes with the professed ideal of open source as “community-built.” Compared to early renowned hackers like Torvalds, Raymond, and Stallman, many of today’s JavaScript developers are unusually humble.

the lack of contributors today reflects an adaptation to changing environmental circumstances, wherein the relationship between a maintainer, contributors, and users is lighter, more transactional.

One of my earliest conversations with a prominent member of the free software movement (who I’ll keep anonymous) involved him sputtering angrily at the idea that open source had anything to do with the developers who produce it. He told me that code is “anarchist” and “untouchable,” and that it must be able to survive beyond any one person’s desire

sifting through the noise of interactions, such as user questions, bug reports, and feature requests, which compete for their attention.

these platforms also bear the responsibility of helping creators grow their reputations and capture the value of their efforts.

it’s not the excessive consumption of code but the excessive participation from users vying for a maintainer’s attention that has made the work untenable for maintainers today.

developers failed to capture the economic value they created:

bus factor, where project health is measured by the number of developers that would need to get hit by a bus before the project is in trouble.

“The Cathedral and the Bazaar: Musings on Linux and Open