He stopped working on the software, but certainly daemontools could have been systemd, qmail could have been the dominant mailer etc. if he had continued.
I still think his way of organizing configuration files on the filesystem, the modularity of qmail and the elegance of daemontools are unsurpassed. You feel that you understand what is going on, and it isn't a chore to work with the software.
He didn't have time to form a "community" of contributors, and most contributors would have ruined the software anyway. He didn't work for $BIGCORP that would have foisted the software on everyone.
In reality, most OSS we use is because of marketing efforts of a "community" or a corporation (there are exceptions like the Linux kernel or gcc).
I still think his way of organizing configuration files on the filesystem, the modularity of qmail and the elegance of daemontools are unsurpassed. You feel that you understand what is going on, and it isn't a chore to work with the software.
He didn't have time to form a "community" of contributors, and most contributors would have ruined the software anyway. He didn't work for $BIGCORP that would have foisted the software on everyone.
In reality, most OSS we use is because of marketing efforts of a "community" or a corporation (there are exceptions like the Linux kernel or gcc).