Concentration & risk

Open source runs on a population smaller than a small town

The top 1% of human contributors — roughly 7,800 people — produce 60.9% of all commits.

Headline statistic
60.9%
2026 edition

A small contributor cohort produces most commits

The top 1% of human contributors produce 60.9% of commits, while the bottom 90% produce 9.3%.

Contributor cohorts are ranked by lifetime commits and compared with their share of attributed commits.

Next 9% and bottom 90% are arithmetic differences from the source's top-1% and top-10% totals.

Source: FOSS Data — https://www.fossdata.org

Interactive visualization is optional. Exact values are available in the data table below.

Data table

Scroll horizontally to review every data column when needed.

CohortContributor shareCommit share
Top 1%1%60.9%
Next 9%9%29.8%
Bottom 90%90%9.3%

Supporting explanation

The top 1% of human contributors — roughly 7,800 people — produce 60.9% of all commits. The top 10% produce 90.7%.

Publication details

Edition

2026 edition

Measured 25 June 2026

Published 2 August 2026

Source
Based on the Exodos Labs provenance dataset.