[terminado]

Actually, that depends on the original motivations of the project. As a developer, I'll frequently code up something that amounts to a small "project" with the potential for re-use, and I might release the source of the program, because why not?

Whether it becomes popular, or achieves continuity isn't really a motive of that sort of stand-alone utility project. On the other hand, a number of wildly popular open source software projects have started out that way, as small, independent side-projects.