There is not a single complain about the quality of the nginx and its place as a "core service", on the contrary, it is a rare example of careful craftsmanship

There is not a single complain about the quality of the nginx and its place as a "core service", on the contrary, it is a rare example of careful craftsmanship (Igor's code), a gold standard, if you wish.) What I am trying to suggest is the simple idea that as long as the code become closed it cease to grow and become stagnant, but while it is open to everyone, like Linux kernel, and just grows and grows, it is not possible to monetize it, and the one possible working model is to develop new features sponsored by someone, like it is the case for the Linux kernel, or to sell your own services with open code, like so many do. It seems like the model acquire, close and sell does not work with open source projects, because when it does not grow it dies (stagnates), just according to the laws of big numbers. Or rather it changes its status to being a commercial product, which is completely different story (paid developers, support, QA, etc) to which very few people would contribute - no one wants to grow other people's wealth.