[delfinom]

Because OSS is a thankless job and _free volunteer_ work. The more niche something is such as Windows kernel clone development, the ridiculously smaller pool of potential contributors that may even want to contribute _their personal free time_ to spend on it.

And I come from the perspective of other large niche OSS projects.

[hilbert42]

"Because OSS is a thankless job and _free volunteer_ work. "

Agreed, it's why I've advocated a halfway 'house' to overcome the problem and pay for the project's development.

It goes something like this (but no doubt there are many suitable variations): create a nonprofit cooperative organization/society that is revenue neutral to develop programs and pay developers a reasonable wage. Employment could be flexible, the organization could employ both full-time and part-time developers (this would help those who've a keen interest in the project but whose principal job is too valuable to let go etc.)

In effect, this software has a cost but it would be very much cheaper than products from Microsoft, Adobe, etc. Also, licensing would be less restrictive—say make the product still cheaper or even free if one compiles the code oneself. There are ways of releasing the code so someone doesn't release a compiled version (each source could be different, have individual certificates, etc., thus compiled versions would individually identifiable), but I'd reckon the price would be so reasonable that it wouldn't be worth the effort.

By revenue-neutral I mean the price of the product would not only cover wages, administration but also necessary reserves. I've mentioned this concept on HN and elsewhere previously for software such a Gimp, LibreOffice and so on.

I'm somewhat surprised there aren't any software organizations that use this development model.

[delfinom]

Because a lot of niche OSS has very little commercial value to even try and be revenue neutral.

Even take ReactOS, why in the world would a org use it when you could just license Windows properly with PCs pre built and have the accountants depreciate them into taxes as they are capital equipment.

If someone needs an old Windows kernel for compat, they'll just keep using that old Windows version they have on a box and not waste engineering labor to migrate it.

Combining a bunch of projects like that under a halfway house increases revenue but does not mean it will be revenue neutral. It'll still be in the red.

End of the day, there are reasons why some OSS stays completely free while others have commerical and free operations ran in parallel. Either it can bring in money or it can't.

[account42]

Add to that that finishing the remaining 90% of a project is a lot less exciting than designing the first 90% of a new one.