YHK - yet another hacker news clone

11 of 23 Core Open Source Projects Run on 1 or 2 People

71 points dxs 2 hours ago 27 comments

bigyabai 2 hours ago | parent

23/23 were included in model training data though, so maybe the bus factor is a wash after all.

calvinmorrison 2 hours ago | parent

OK so we only need to employ 22 people as a WORLD to have these guys full time employed? when can we start enshittifying it?

vatsachak 2 hours ago | parent

Wait it's not AI agents waat

jszymborski 2 hours ago | parent

> "xz: The Backdoor That Put One Maintainer in the Spotlight"

Do people who publish this stuff read this and think "this LLMism sounds good to me"?

pixl97 1 hour ago | parent

This is an editorial style that's been around a lot longer than I've been alive. Your causality may be a bit backwards.

throw0101a 1 hour ago | parent

Obligatory (and referenced in the article):

* https://xkcd.com/2347/

KazaNLP 1 hour ago | parent

TIL! sudo was the surprise on the list for me

manquer 1 hour ago | parent

why though? number of maintainers is a function of how much work is needed now rather than how important the project is ? I would imagine sudo isn't getting that much commits/changes now. What would 10 maintainers do on sudo ?

umvi 40 minutes ago | parent

> What would 10 maintainers do on sudo?

Well, if other projects with a glut of devs are a sign, probably integrate AI into it somehow

eviks 6 minutes ago | parent

Founds vulnerabilities faster? Rewritten it in a safer language? Made a safer doas-like subset compilation target? Made it harder to trick a single person by having more eyes on code reviews?

roenxi 1 hour ago | parent

Reflecting the enormous effectiveness of free markets in the software space. If there was a strong regulatory system around software development it might cost orders of magnitude more to run a modern OS.

rrr_oh_man 1 hour ago | parent

Isn't that a rip off of https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50002494 ?

compass_copium 1 hour ago | parent

…and the second person in how many of the two-person projects is Jia Tan?

lgl 18 minutes ago | parent

Only a few months ago I read some article detailing the XZ backdoor and Jia Tan.

It was a fascinating, scary and sad story. Can't really find the article right now, so here's the wikipedia article about it in case other readers don't get the reference.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XZ_Utils_backdoor

jdw64 1 hour ago | parent

The problem with open source like this is that it’s too difficult to work on, and if you start studying just to be able to work on it, it’s hard to get noticed. Most core open-source projects start with optimization and are extremely difficult. But would people with that level of skill really dislike being noticed?

remywang 1 hour ago | parent

> Eight projects, including … SQLite … show no grant or sponsorship in any public funding source the analysis checked

SQLite has a list of sponsors right on the homepage https://www.sqlite.org/

thayne 59 minutes ago | parent

They define "public funding source" later as a list of specific funding organizations like OpenCollective. But that definition feels odd, and like much of this feels like it might be AI generated.

tamimio 1 hour ago | parent

What scares me is the new generation are mostly tech illiterate just like boomers, only millennials and some gen x are lifting the tech world, now add AI to the mix and how it’s making newer gen are even dumber, the future is bleak.

afr0ck 57 minutes ago | parent

I am Gen-Z who works on the Linux kernel and who still values hardcore stuff. We need more support from the Gen-X and the Millennials. I try my best to hack on things, write and contribute patches to enables features that would otherwise only exist in proprietary software. I feel like the veterans are not supporting us enough. I get a lot of hate and push back just for trying. In my opinion, a society cannot thrive without elders providing support for the young. But the general atmosphere feels completely the opposite these days.

ChrisArchitect 59 minutes ago | parent

Related source:

The people holding up the internet

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50002494

duhhhhh1212 46 minutes ago | parent

https://www.pangram.com/history/66de9897-c6ef-4dc3-8e89-0e24...

Don't waste your time.

functionmouse 42 minutes ago | parent

What makes you so confident in the results of that website?

duhhhhh1212 25 minutes ago | parent

Personal usage over months. Third party evals. Not saying it's 100% accurate but it's close enough to trust. linuxstans.com news articles are mostly ai generated, it's a slop shop.

adastra22 5 minutes ago | parent

On this case, the fact that SQLite is on the list.

erelong 21 minutes ago | parent

"Now, with added AI assistance..."