HN Reader

can't relate to this at all - maybe it's different in programming languages teams? if anything we would be thrilled to find one of our colleagues had already written the library we needed and was available to ask questions of if we needed anything explained!

I'm not sure I understand the claims being made. I'm curious if this is experiential / anecdotal or if widespread.

I think OSS is OSS always...being able to audit it makes it (reasonably) reliable, at least in the sense of security. I can look at the code, run checks, etc. That alone doesn't guarantee things can't crash and burn, but it's a great start compared to a closed-source solution, even if that solution stands on its promises, as reputation in software is an iffy prospect today.

What really rocks is the open-source spirit. It’s not about faceless strangers, but a community of people who freely contribute their time and expertise. In mature open-source projects, many reviewers and users scrutinize every change, making the codebase more robust and reliable.

> employees often maintain their projects because they love them, not because the company asked them to. That’s often a strong guarantee of long-term care.

Until they leave, or switch teams.

The "entry barrier" and the level of commitment required to bring an OSS project to "findable in Google, has at least some github stars/whatever equivalent, is green in CI, and actually works when you try it" is higher that the authors of a typical internal library in a typical enterprise can afford. Which is why the recognition and trust is usually higher. All IMHO.