# The Stadium Is the Dominant Open Source Pattern Raymond's "bazaar" model -- many contributors freely collaborating -- described Linux and a handful of other projects. It was never universal. In more than 85% of open source projects on GitHub, less than 5% of developers are responsible for over 95% of code and social interactions. The dominant pattern isn't a bazaar. It's a stadium: one person on stage, thousands in the seats. This matters because the bazaar model shaped how the entire industry thinks about open source. Corporate open source strategies assume contributor pipelines. Foundations build governance for multi-stakeholder collaboration. Conference talks celebrate community-driven development. But most projects don't work that way. Most are maintained by one or two people who manage a flood of issues, pull requests, and support questions from users who have no intention of becoming regular contributors. The stadium framing changes everything about how you support open source. Bazaar-thinking says "attract more contributors." Stadium-thinking says "protect the maintainer's attention." Bazaar-thinking builds contributor ladders and mentorship programs. Stadium-thinking builds triage automation, says no to low-context PRs, and funds the individual who's actually doing the work. The industry's refusal to update its mental model from bazaar to stadium is one reason maintainer burnout is endemic. We keep building programs for a community structure that doesn't exist in most projects, while the people actually holding things together get buried in demand. <!-- atomicity: 1 idea ✓ --> ## Why This Matters If you're building a corporate open source strategy, funding open source, or contributing to projects, check which model actually applies. Applying bazaar solutions to stadium projects wastes resources and accelerates maintainer burnout. ## Links - [[3. Resources/Permanent Notes/The Maker-Taker Frame Confuses Two Different Scarcities]] — evidence-for: a large spectator population around a small contributor core makes code consumption and maintainer capacity visibly different scarcities - [[3. Resources/Permanent Notes/The Seven Principles Are a Community Diagnostic]] — contrasts: the stadium pattern shows that audience size alone cannot satisfy principles that require participation, belonging, and shared responsibility - [[3. Resources/Permanent Notes/Open Source Project Market Share Tracks Founder Trust]] — evidence-for: a stadium project's dependence on one visible center makes ecosystem recommendation unusually sensitive to that figure's trust. - [[3. Resources/Permanent Notes/Open Source Projects Are Not Communities by Default]] — evidence-for: a large audience around a tiny producer core is participation without the reciprocal relationships that make community. - [[3. Resources/Permanent Notes/Open-Source Design Tools Reach Parity Through Community-Contribution Velocity]] — applies-in: Penpot shows how a stadium-shaped project can convert a broad contributor edge into product velocity when the core can absorb it. - [[3. Resources/Permanent Notes/Casual Contributors Are Users Not Community Members]] — evidence-for: the stadium pattern's large audience is mostly a user population passing through rather than a contributor community in formation. - [[3. Resources/Permanent Notes/Maintainer Attention Is the Scarce Resource in Open Source]] — evidence-for: the small group doing review and coordination sets the system's capacity despite a much larger audience - [[3. Resources/Permanent Notes/The Inverse Commons]] — extends: the stadium is the participation pattern produced when a non-rival codebase depends on rival human attention - [[3. Resources/Literature Notes/The Maintainer's Burden - Open Source Beyond the Bazaar - Literature Note]] — evidence-for: the source documents the maintenance load concentrated in the contributor core - [[3. Resources/MOCs/Open Source Governance MOC]] — cluster context for participation structure and maintainer capacity - [[3. Resources/Permanent Notes/Maintenance Is Most of the Work but Gets No Prestige]] — applies-in: the stadium's large user audience celebrates visible creation while a small maintainer core performs the low-status upkeep - [[3. Resources/Literature Notes/Red Hat's Commitment to Open Source - Upholding Values and Sustainability]] — evidence-for: downstream repackaging without contribution exposes the few-producers and many-consumers imbalance of the stadium pattern. - [[3. Resources/MOCs/Commons & Community Governance MOC]] — applies-in: the MOC lists this note under Theoretical question. ## Source - [[3. Resources/Literature Notes/The Maintainer's Burden - Open Source Beyond the Bazaar - Literature Note]] - [[3. Resources/Readwise/Books/Working in Public]] - [[3. Resources/Readwise/Books/The Cathedral & the Bazaar]] - [[3. Resources/Readwise/Books/Open Sources|Open Sources]] - [[3. Resources/Readwise/Books/The Art of Community|The Art of Community]] - [[3. Resources/Readwise/Books/Open Source for the Enterprise|Open Source for the Enterprise]]