If you’re of a certain age, you probably remember the essay The Cathedral and the Bazaar. The TL;DR was that old open source was the cathedral of exclusive developers and groups. Then the Bazaar showed up (which was the Linux Kernel for example) and that freed us from the shackles of the cathedral.
Except if we look at how things evolved, it wasn’t actually a bazaar. It was a bunch of roadside churches that are now megachurches. But there is still a bazaar, and it’s holding up our modern infrastructure.

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Open source has evolved from the cathedral vs bazaar dichotomy into three models: cathedrals (exclusive groups), megachurches (large foundations like Linux Foundation with formal governance and corporate funding), and the bazaar (individual maintainers running most projects). While megachurch projects get attention and resources, the majority of open source remains single-maintainer bazaar projects that form critical infrastructure. Funding these smaller projects remains challenging, though initiatives like Sovereign Tech Agency are exploring no-strings-attached funding models. Understanding and supporting bazaar projects is essential since they underpin modern infrastructure.

The Cathedral, the Megachurch, and the Bazaar