What are some of the most used, yet understaffed libraries?

Question

I&rsquo;m sure we&rsquo;re all aware that there are libraries that are heavily used by the community and that are understaffed. This is best described with a single image: XKCD's 2347 (https://xkcd.com/2347). Can you name any such libraries / projects?

hyperman1 · Accepted Answer

I think the answer is:almost all of them, especially if they are more maintenance than new development.
In open source, it is common for huge projects to have a very low dev counts. At devoxx, I heard the maven core, critical for most of the Java world, had 10 devs. This is a lot, compared to tons of lesser known libs.
In the enterprise, it's not much better. I know about a library connecting COBOL to the outside world. Half Europe's banking, state and healthcare are critically dependent on it. But its so old and arcane, only a few devs dare still touch it.
This is normal for software maintenance. If it's abandoned and still relevant, someone will take over because they have to, and the rest of us become freeloaders. If there already is someone doing maintenance, he will receive a never ending stream of bug reports and even nastygrams.

bheadmaster · Answer

NTP.Almost every server distro uses it, yet it was maintained by a single person, and if I remember right, is abandoned now. Probably because the code is complex and does some convoluted computation to maintain time synchronization.

rictus · Answer

Well, today, a good example is core-js. But it depends what you mean by "understaffed".

_448 · Answer

Reading the title I thought you were asking about book libraries, and clicked on the title to comment that the UK public libraries are most used but underfunded and understaffed. But then read the description of the post and thought, oh well! :)

What are some of the most used, yet understaffed libraries?

I’m sure we’re all aware that there are libraries that are heavily used by the community and that are understaffed. This is best described with a single image: XKCD's 2347 (https://xkcd.com/2347). Can you name any such libraries / projects?

NTP.
Almost every server distro uses it, yet it was maintained by a single person, and if I remember right, is abandoned now. Probably because the code is complex and does some convoluted computation to maintain time synchronization.

Well, today, a good example is core-js. But it depends what you mean by "understaffed".

Reading the title I thought you were asking about book libraries, and clicked on the title to comment that the UK public libraries are most used but underfunded and understaffed. But then read the description of the post and thought, oh well! :)