Remember: code is free as in "free puppy". FOSS communities were never valuable because of the code. It was the shared written and oral traditions that make the software useful, usable, and updated.
There is a lot of OSS software out there (e.g. in scientific communities) that I would say would barely qualify for each of those three attributes. The main reason it's valuable for the respective communities, is because it's the only thing that's available.
There's two reasons for that. The math is generally very unorthodox and alien for a seasoned developer, and software development practices are equally alien for the scientist who can understand and evolve the math behind it.
I have written a boundary element method evaluator for my Ph.D. not only math was alien, the required coding techniques for making it fast is very different for a standard developer. You have to have the perseverance and interest to do that. I chose that path intently and I do not regret a millisecond of it.
The problem is, if you don't have a dedicated team to continue that codebase (e.g.: like the Eigen team), your code is basically done and done. If somebody doesn't share the same passion, it's almost impossible for someone to take and carry it forward.
Oh, due to the math and optimizations, the code's structure need to be both documented and the next batch of developer(s) have to be tutored by the person who's giving the code to them.
True, five years ago.
The advent of coding agents has changed everything, and often make modifying somebody else's bespoke software practical
When the math you're working on bespoke, and the optimizations you do are intricate, these models and agents fall flat on their face, because there's no "a set of widely used optimizations" (i.e. an open repository of very nicely optimized code for cases X, Y and Z) to apply on top of the codebase.
By bespoke, I mean, there's only one academic paper written about it, and it's written by me and my supervisor.
Stack overflow was an amazing open documentation community. Even if the code snippets were less amazing.
One central fault of GNU is their focus on their code and their problematic Jiu-Jitsu attempt to force reluctant companies into doing open-source.
Then again the history of Chromium is less about community - I'm not sure where that fits in my world modeling.
(reedited - clarified words)
I don't care if they adhere to written and oral traditions of the past or some other means
I need to add and divide and test values in memory. I don't care what it looks like to do that.
I don't need a passenger telling me how to drive. Why would I want a patronizing coder telling me how to use a machine?