Bus Factor OSS

Noun · Open Source

Definitions

  1. The risk in an open source project that too much critical knowledge or authority is concentrated in too few maintainers, so losing them would severely harm continuity. In OSS, bus factor is especially acute because many essential projects rely on volunteer effort.

    In plain English: The danger that an open source project depends too heavily on too few people.

    Example: "The dependency audit flagged bus factor OSS risk because the package had one active maintainer and millions of downstream installs."

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