The first indicator of that popped up, when valve ended greenlight, and just greenlit all the things. Which propped Evolution RTS upon the steam front page for half a day, flooding the original lobby system and showing how inadequat the whole ecosystem was for that. The original Evo dev Forb learned from the whole mess after he returned from his day job.
Zero-k then learned the lessons, developed a ingui lobby, started the whole matchmaking and better server deployment, detached from the whole "one central server" thing of the spring eco system.
BAR did some graphical overhaul, with Floris, Beherith, Sprung and the whole original crew supported by new faces like Teifion and on and on. They optimized the Spring engine into a new version- more tailored to BARs needs and reworked alot of the stuff.
Its gpl open source, so the project order and who invented what is pretty flowy.. everybody copies from everybody, one progress is everyones progress..