I feel like that is a consequence of people being so entrenched in a centralized mindset that the possibility of a user customizing their own version of the sof

I feel like that is a consequence of people being so entrenched in a centralized mindset that the possibility of a user customizing their own version of the software doesn't even occur to them. Open source is frequently touted as allowing anyone to make changes to the software to suit their needs. If somebody hears that while having the incorrect mental model of a single canonical version of software, I can see how they would assume that anyone can contribute to that single canonical version.