[cgarrigue]

There's the matter of scope but there's the matter of motivation too.

When an opensource application like GIMP, Blender, or even Manuksript for a lesser known example, are started, it's mainly because proponents of opensource want to use such application but dislike closed source. They fill a need, so getting new people willing to participate even after the people who started the project moved to something else is possible.

For an opensource game, whether a clone or not, the project is generally started because some proponents of opensource like the original game and want to share it with the community. But they are not really needed per se. That means it's more difficult to get new people joining the project, and consequently if the original team cannot keep getting motivated for many months/years, the project end up abandoned.

[smokel]

> When an opensource application like GIMP, Blender, or even Manuksript for a lesser known example, are started, it's mainly because proponents of opensource want to use such application but dislike closed source.

Just for the record, Gimp was started as a student assignment project [1], and Blender started as proprietary software [2].

[1] https://www.gimp.org/about/ancient_history.html

[2] https://www.blender.org/about/history/