Yeah it's just a joke, lightly poking fun at contemporary commentary worrying about the viability of open source projects perceived as too centralized around on

Yeah it's just a joke, lightly poking fun at contemporary commentary worrying about the viability of open source projects perceived as too centralized around one key person. I don't know how serious the concerns ever were, though keep in mind that the idea of relying on open source software was still novel at the time. As I recall, a lot of the world wide web seemed to be jestful writing of a similar tone (irreverently humorous but ultimately playfully cynical at most, not darkly cynical as today) in those days.