I think GP meant the number of people touching the software over its lifetime, not necessary at the same time in one location like in a company. e.g. Eclipse

I think GP meant the number of people touching the software over its lifetime, not necessary at the same time in one location like in a company. e.g. Eclipse must have hundreds if not thousands of contributors, loosely networked and hardly seen each other, contributing over a long period of time. Yet they are able to understand each other's code and build on top of each other. The readability of a language is a must to foster this kind of cooperation. Java is a very readable language and the knowledge in the code can be easier shared among developers.