In my experience, good software is developed by tight teams. Small teams usually have a clearer direction and can respond to change faster, (startups are a good

In my experience, good software is developed by tight teams. Small teams usually have a clearer direction and can respond to change faster, (startups are a good example). Conversely, large distributed teams usually produce more generalised software with less direction (see [1] conway's law). But Team size is just one (maybe the least important) of several factors that contribute to an Open-Source project's success. It's hard to distil why some project's are successful, but it generally comes down to: - Pain points that the solution fixes, (is it way better than alternatives) - Complexity of solution, (how hard is it to set up) - Motives of the project, (is it for-profit? consultant-ware? etc..) - Size of the community, (argueably the most important factor) [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conway%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conway%27s_law