Many people have made preparations for their families in the event of their sudden passing, leaving behind important instructions and information. For Daniel Stenberg, this includes passwords to his Google and GitHub accounts.

Stenberg is the creator of curl, a widely used open-source internet transfer engine that has been downloaded billions of times, facilitating data transfers between computer servers. Initially released in 1996, it now serves millions of users daily.

Stenberg emphasizes the importance of having someone ready to maintain curl when he can no longer do so. "I just want to make sure that everything is there so that someone can take over when I go away," he says. This issue is one faced by many early pioneers of open-source software who revolutionized the tech world in the 1990s and early 2000s.

The open-source movement promoted the idea that anyone could contribute to software development, and the software could be used, modified, and shared freely. This philosophy challenged the dominance of large tech companies, drove innovation, and forms the foundation of today's technological landscape.

In 1999, Loris Degioanni made his first contributions to an open-source network analysis tool that eventually became Wireshark, which he worked on as part of his master’s thesis. "My concern was graduating," he recalls, not worrying about the long-term future of the project.

Nearly 30 years later, Degioanni is the CTO and founder of Sysdig, a cybersecurity company that is a significant sponsor of Wireshark. "We’re approaching the time when the founders of these early open-source projects are starting to age," he observes.

While many open-source projects come and go, some remain vital over the years. Founders and maintainers often want to ensure their continuation while there is still demand. This is not only due to the time spent developing the software but also because these projects have cultivated dedicated communities, both online and offline.

However, while figures like Stenberg and Degioanni can take steps to ensure their projects continue, finding someone to take over is not always easy. A common concern in the open-source community is the lack of younger developers willing to contribute or maintain these projects, especially since much of the work is unpaid.

Even Linux creator Linus Torvalds, who launched the open-source movement in the early 1990s with the Linux operating system, acknowledged at the Open Source Summit Europe in September that the "kernel maintainers are aging."

Amanda Brock, CEO of OpenUK, an organization representing the UK’s open technology community, explains that younger developers might not fully appreciate the grip closed software companies once had. "You have a next generation that hasn’t engaged as a philanthropic and volunteer-driven community in the same way or on the same scale."

There are also technical challenges. Many significant open-source projects were originally written in C, a programming language developed in the 1970s. While C is still taught in universities, it is less commonly used in modern commercial applications, making it harder to attract younger developers. "The fact that C is the main language makes it harder to engage the younger generation," says Degioanni.