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points by zem 21 hours ago | 0 comments
you missed the 99% case, which is some random person who has a reasonably well paying day job and develops the project in their spare time. AI agents make that more sustainable, not less. vim is a good example, as are a lot of popular programming languages.
[–] tmtvl 18 hours ago
That's not sustainable. If $DAYJOB becomes too busy the project will stall because the random person won't have enough time to work on it anymore.
[–] zem 12 hours ago
it's not sustainable in theory, because you can definitely think up valid failure modes like that. in practice though it's how a huge percentage of open source software out there is developed and maintained. at most the bdfl becomes less active in development but continues to shepherd the project as it attracts other contributors.