Open source software has reached an economically stable but precarious equilibrium, according to a detailed analysis by Seldo. The core dynamic mirrors evolutionary biology: closed-source software (the “hawk”) competes by withholding code and charging premiums, while open source (the “dove”) cooperates by giving code away freely. The stable outcome, the analysis argues, is that permissive licenses like MIT and BSD have won out.
Every major company that has attempted to restrict open source licensing to generate revenue has ultimately failed against forked competitors. Facebook’s React was relicensed from BSD+Patents to MIT in 2017 after WordPress dropped it. Elasticsearch, Terraform, and Redis all attempted source-available licensing only to face forks that attracted contributors and cloud provider support—Elastic and Redis eventually reverted to open licensing.
However, this market equilibrium masks a human cost problem. According to Tidelift’s 2024 survey, 60% of open source maintainers are unpaid for their work, and 61% of those work alone. Nearly 60% of maintainers have quit or considered quitting due to burnout, lost interest, or life constraints.
The concentration of critical infrastructure on overextended developers is striking. Sonatype found that only 11% of 1.2 million open source projects are actively maintained. The Linux Foundation’s Census II identified 136 developers writing over 80% of code in the fifty most-used packages. A Harvard study estimated that replacing open source would cost companies $8.8 trillion, with 5% of developers producing 96% of that value.
The xz backdoor incident in 2024 exemplified the risks. A compression library present on nearly every Linux machine contained a backdoor inserted over two years by a fake contributor who socially engineered the single unpaid maintainer. The breach was discovered only because a Microsoft engineer noticed SSH was slower than expected.
Seldo argues the system isn’t breaking—it’s stable, but at high human cost. What has changed is velocity. While Linux accumulated slowly enough for maintainers to work nights and weekends sustainably, npm and the web created millions of tiny modules that became production-critical within weeks. Security threats now exploit vulnerabilities in popular libraries within days. The cost of maintaining popular packages increased dramatically while compensation remained zero.
Key facts
- 60% of open source maintainers receive no payment for their work, according to Tidelift’s 2024 survey
- Only 11% of 1.2 million open source projects were actively maintained, per Sonatype analysis
- 136 developers wrote more than 80% of code in the fifty most-used packages, per Linux Foundation Census II
- Facebook relicensed React to MIT in 2017 after WordPress dropped it over restrictive licensing
- Elasticsearch, Terraform, and Redis all attempted restrictive licensing but faced successful forks
- A Harvard study estimated replacing open source would cost $8.8 trillion
- Nearly 60% of maintainers have quit or considered quitting due to burnout