I’m referring to xkcd 2347, the case where a small and oftentimes hobbyist project end up being fundamental to an entire sector
This obviously happens a lot in FOSS, but I’m wondering if this happens to, say, your personal hobbies or things that matter to you?
Asking because this has just happened to one of my hobbies two days ago. The maintainer of a very important web server for the entire community suddenly announced on X that they would shut down the server on May 31 Japanese time. Since the web server was so important, the community has already organized and nearly completed an organized web scrape of the entire server, less than 36 hours from when the news was announced (and 1-2 days before it would have been shut down)
Bill Booth
If it wasn’t for Bill, modern skydiving would not exist. It’s not just the 3 ring release, but several of his innovations that brought jumping out of an airplane out of the dark ages. His “Vector” line of containers is the best in the business. My student jumps were on rip cord equipped containers, but once of student status I exclusively jumped BOC throw out PC’s. Bottom Of Container Pilot Chute. This is how the main parachute is deployed by the jumper.
Does modern skydiving require his ongoing developments? Probably not, but the very foundation of skydiving was laid down by him. I would not have my 4500 jumps if it were not for him.