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i think the 2005-2015 era open source boom was built on a nice job environment where people had a little free time and employers believed in creativity the free time dried up, everyone burned out, 2015-2025 open source has been explicitly targeted toward getting funding & making money. what's next?

Tom MacWright

@macwright.com

the state of long-term maintenance of open source is pretty bad and contributes to the churn of the ecosystem in general, very few people really want to and are able to spend that much time on side projects over the long term, and even fewer when the conditions on the ground deteriorate

14/10/25, 3:28 pm0 reposts31 likes

rich harris

@rich-harris.dev

14 Oct 2025

I think burnout/ZIRP is only part of the story. the reward:effort ratio was much higher in 2005-2015 because there were fewer of us and there was more low-hanging fruit. today, almost the only problems left to solve are the ones thorny enough to require multiple full-time engineers

Ben

@kaleidawave.bsky.social

15 Oct 2025

IMO "the only problems left to solve" are ones that require new approaches and those don't require a lot of resource to establish.