

If an app includes 50 well-known big projects and 1000 small projects, the sum result can still be that small projects make up for a large fraction of the code.
I understand your point that this is possible. It is an assumption to assume it is most likely the case however.
I would expect the Fat Head of most used open source projects to make up the vast majority of the open source code included in apps. It is not a common practice to include 1000 small projects into a code base for an app, or even 100.
Is it not reasonable then to expect that the 77% of app code from open source is because the most popular app building blocks are open source? Aren’t the popular open source languages, frameworks, and databases are themselves big enough to exceed the number lines of internally written code for the app business logic most of the time?
For example, if I make a “small” electron app its going to be 90% or more open source because the electron base is so large already.








Yes, 100 projects from the Fat Head would make sense.
Do you have any way to establish that these 100 more often come from the Long Tail?