Re:Most open-source software is libraries or frameworks
by stcredzero on Monday July 24, 2017 @03:10PM
(#14841644)
Of course it is predominantly tools for coders. End user applications have wholly separate paths to the user
Libraries and tools for coders -- what's particular about these? These are the areas where programmers are also the domain experts! So is it any wonder that these are the projects that succeed?
I guarantee openssh, Firefox, LibreOffice, and probably a hundred other applications, are (orders of magnitude) more popular than the top applications on this list.
Let's look at the success of end-user open source applications. Is there a pattern of success being correlated with prevalence of the domain knowledge in the programmer population? There will be other influences, which will bring in corporate resources and skew the degree of success, but I think this pattern holds there as well.
Libraries and tools for coders -- what's particular about these? These are the areas where programmers are also the domain experts! So is it any wonder that these are the projects that succeed?
I guarantee openssh, Firefox, LibreOffice, and probably a hundred other applications, are (orders of magnitude) more popular than the top applications on this list.
Let's look at the success of end-user open source applications. Is there a pattern of success being correlated with prevalence of the domain knowledge in the programmer population? There will be other influences, which will bring in corporate resources and skew the degree of success, but I think this pattern holds there as well.