[ericalexander3]

Isn't open source proof that you don't need buts in seats in the same office? If open source projects can do it, why can't most businesses? What's the limiting factor in business? Is it communication? Is it antiquated management practices?

Any organization that designs a system (defined broadly) will produce a design whose structure is a copy of the organization's communication structure.

— Melvin E. Conway

[Jasper_]

Open source's organizational issue is that maintainers tend to prefer what's fun to work on, and often boring administrative work or difficult bugs go unfixed, especially if they have cut through multiple levels module ownership. Maintainers often start to resent the project ("burn out") because they're not paid but are expected to do these things that just aren't fun.

The real power of open source is that there are enough up and coming people who haven't learned this, and so if maintainers aren't supported it doesn't matter, there will be a new library to migrate to in the future by a new college grad, and this is one reason why things tend to be so unstable and short-lived.

The most successful open source projects have large corporate backing, like Kubernetes or Linux. And even Linux is a weird case, as a lot of architectural decisions and feature development are wonky because you often can't get the e.g. IO and Network subsystem guys to agree to the same idea.

[zozbot234]

Open source is heavily decentralized, see the classic paper The Cathedral and the Bazaar. An enterprise (whether profit-seeking or non-profit) is a 'cathedral' by definition, hence they will always be burdened by the constraints of "office"-like work.