@daedalus I think the metaphor is more nuanced than that. Roadkill was accidentally killed by a third party. The effort of the maintainer isn't present.

MALLORY'S FRIDGE: A PARABLE

It's more like a roadside produce fridge, where someone has undertaken the effort to get the goods in the fridge and keep the fridge powered, but then the Honesty Box goes unfilled.

You *think* what's coming out of the fridge is high quality because a) many people use the fridge b) there haven't been issues with the produce in the past and c) you kinda trust the single person, let's call them Bob who has been around for donkey's years and you see from time to time at various confs.

Then someone comes along to Bob and says "hey Bob, need a hand looking after the fridge and putting produce in it? You've been doing this a while". And let's call her Mallory. Mallory does this a while, and the fridge and produce keeps running.

And Mallory turns out to be a hacker, except now she has the keys to the fridge and what goes in it - which is now a critical component in your corporate stack.

Maybe you should've put the money in the Honesty Box.

Except the metaphor doesn't end there.

You trusted Bob. Top Bloke. Always ran tests. Delicious produce. Fridge sometimes conked out, but he always got it running. You ran some tests on the produce, just cursory ones, but it was always good.

Now you need to do more testing on what's coming out of Mallory's Fridge. You don't trust her, and you don't trust what she's putting out. Maybe the produce is tagged. Maybe it phones home. Maybe it's full of pests. But to source an alternative product is $$$ 🤑 Tests and verification are cheaper than a re-write or alternative vendor.

Now Mallory's in charge, you don't really like using produce fridges. You've been burned here, even though you didn't pay the Honesty Box.

Do you use a Produce fridge again?

Of course you do! But this time you pay the Honesty Box. Because that's how you ensure high quality produce and a working fridge, right?

So now the government wants to regulate all software, even software in fridges on the side of the road.

And a consortium forms, let's call them the Fridge Foundation.

And their goals are to provide shared infrastructure for roadside software fridges, to reduce the chances a Mallory takes over. And they kinda work. Some of the overheads are reduced. And they push back a bit on the government because they have a stronger voice than Bob alone.

But the Fridge Foundation doesn't actually provide a lot of *resources*. Bob gets the fridge serviced for free, and the fridge now has the Fridge Foundation logo on it.

But he gets tired of putting the produce in the fridge every week, and the Honestly Box isn't enough for him to put on a junior.

And Mallory calls up Bob and says "hey Bob, need a hand with picking the produce and putting it in the fridge?"

And it's now Mallory's Fridge.