Tartufo i batalo

There were two competing free software projects, doing more or less the same thing. Project B was in active development 3 years before Project R showed up, and then the two competed for quite some time.

While Project B seemed to operate as part of the gift economy, Project R was developed by folks who had received some monetary funding, and once their funding began to wane, they began to complain. Eventually fundraising campaigns were held.

The community was happy to participate in polite fictions: Project B didn't really exist; the only people who could possibly fix the bugs in Project R were the people demanding money; there would be no conflict of interest between the gatekeepers of Project R.

Gradually, all development ceased on Project B and never resumed. The leader of Project R kept jumping up and down and demanding more money, until finally he declared it insufficient.

Then there were two dead codebases.