Ole-Morten Duesund
f1b405950e
Erstatt grove estimater med reelle bidragstall fra GitHub, OpenHub og prosjektsider. Legg til kildelenker for ~20 prosjekter, Mermaid-diagram, og seksjon med interessante detaljer (SQLite med ~4 utviklere, Leaflet fra Ukraina). Legg til Forgejo/Gitea og GitHub som manglende lag. Oppdatert totalestimat: ~119 000 mennesker. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.6 <noreply@anthropic.com>
192 lines
10 KiB
Markdown
192 lines
10 KiB
Markdown
# Standing on Shoulders
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## How many people made this app possible?
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Tilfluktsrom is a small Android app — about 900 source files — that helps
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Norwegians find their nearest public shelter in an emergency. One person built
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it in under a day. But that was only possible because of the accumulated work of
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roughly **119,000 people**, spanning decades, countries, and disciplines.
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This document traces the human effort behind every layer of the stack, with
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sources for each estimate.
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```mermaid
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pie title People behind each layer
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"Map data (OSM)" : 50000
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"Linux kernel" : 20000
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"Physical infrastructure" : 10500
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"Build tools & dev infra" : 6700
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"AI-assisted development" : 6000
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"Shelter data & builders" : 6000
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"Internet & standards" : 5250
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"OS & runtimes (excl. Linux)" : 3800
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"Libraries (Android)" : 2100
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"Libraries (PWA)" : 1750
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"Hosting & distribution" : 5700
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"Programming languages" : 1600
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```
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---
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## Layer 0: Physical Infrastructure — GPS & Sensors (~10,500 people)
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| Component | Role | Est. people | Source |
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| GPS constellation | 31 satellites, maintained by US Space Force | ~5,000 | Industry estimate; [GPS.gov](https://www.gps.gov/) |
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| Magnetometer/compass sensors | Enable the direction arrow to point at shelters | ~500 | Industry estimate |
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| ARM architecture | The CPU instruction set running every Android device | ~5,000 | [Arm had 8,330 employees in 2025](https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/ARM/arm-holdings/number-of-employees); ~5,000 estimated over the architecture's 40-year history |
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Before a single line of code runs, hardware designed by tens of thousands of
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engineers must be in orbit, in your pocket, and on the circuit board.
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## Layer 1: Internet & Standards (~5,250 people)
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| Component | Role | Est. people | Source |
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| TCP/IP, DNS, HTTP, TLS | The protocols that carry shelter data from server to phone | ~5,000 | Cumulative IETF/W3C contributors over decades |
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| GeoJSON specification | The format the shelter data is published in (IETF RFC 7946) | ~50 | [RFC 7946 authors + WG](https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc7946) |
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| EPSG / coordinate reference systems | The math behind UTM33N → WGS84 coordinate conversion | ~200 | [IOGP Geomatics Committee](https://epsg.org/) |
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## Layer 2: Operating Systems & Runtimes (~23,800 people)
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| Component | Role | Est. people | Source |
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| Linux kernel | Foundation of Android | ~20,000 | [Linux Foundation: ~20,000+ unique contributors since 2005](https://www.linuxfoundation.org/blog/blog/2017-linux-kernel-report-highlights-developers-roles-accelerating-pace-change) |
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| Android (AOSP) | Mobile OS, incl. ART runtime | ~2,000 | [ResearchGate study: ~1,563 contributors](https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Top-Companies-Contributing-to-Android-Projects_tbl3_236631958); likely higher now |
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| OpenJDK | The Java runtime Kotlin compiles to | ~1,800 | [GitHub: ~1,779 contributors](https://github.com/openjdk/jdk) |
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## Layer 3: Programming Languages (~1,600 people)
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| Language | Origin | Contributors | Source |
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| Kotlin | JetBrains + community | ~765 | [GitHub: JetBrains/kotlin](https://github.com/JetBrains/kotlin) |
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| TypeScript | Microsoft + community (for the PWA) | ~823 | [GitHub: microsoft/TypeScript](https://github.com/microsoft/TypeScript) |
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## Layer 4: Build Tools & Dev Infrastructure (~6,700 people)
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| Tool | Role | Contributors | Source |
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| Gradle | Build automation | ~869 | [GitHub: gradle/gradle](https://github.com/gradle/gradle) |
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| Android Gradle Plugin | Android-specific build pipeline | ~200 | Google internal; estimate |
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| KSP (Kotlin Symbol Processing) | Code generation for Room database | ~100 | Estimate based on [GitHub: google/ksp](https://github.com/google/ksp) |
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| R8 / ProGuard | Release minification and optimization | ~100 | Estimate |
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| Vite | PWA bundler | ~1,100 | [GitHub: vitejs/vite](https://github.com/vitejs/vite) |
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| Bun | Package manager and JS runtime | ~733 | [GitHub: oven-sh/bun](https://github.com/oven-sh/bun) |
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| Git | Version control | ~1,820 | [GitHub: git/git](https://github.com/git/git) |
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| Android Studio / IntelliJ | IDE | ~1,500 | Estimate; JetBrains + Google |
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| Maven Central, Google Maven, npm | Package registry infrastructure | ~300 | Estimate |
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## Layer 5: Libraries — Android App (~2,100 people)
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| Library | What it does | Contributors | Source |
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| AndroidX (Core, AppCompat, Room, WorkManager, etc.) | UI, architecture, database, scheduling | ~1,000 | [GitHub: androidx/androidx](https://github.com/androidx/androidx) monorepo |
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| Material Design Components | Visual design language and components | ~199 | [GitHub: material-components-android](https://github.com/material-components/material-components-android) |
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| Kotlinx Coroutines | Async data loading without blocking the UI | ~308 | [GitHub: Kotlin/kotlinx.coroutines](https://github.com/Kotlin/kotlinx.coroutines) |
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| OkHttp | Downloads the GeoJSON ZIP from Geonorge | ~287 | [GitHub: square/okhttp](https://github.com/square/okhttp) |
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| OSMDroid | Offline OpenStreetMap rendering | ~105 | [GitHub: osmdroid/osmdroid](https://github.com/osmdroid/osmdroid) |
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| Play Services Location | FusedLocationProvider for precise GPS | ~200 | Google internal; estimate |
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| SQLite | The embedded database engine | **~4** | [sqlite.org/crew.html](https://sqlite.org/crew.html) — the most deployed database in the world, maintained by 3–4 people |
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## Layer 6: Libraries — PWA (~1,750 people)
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| Library | Role | Contributors | Source |
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| Leaflet | Interactive web maps (created in Ukraine) | ~865 | [GitHub: Leaflet/Leaflet](https://github.com/Leaflet/Leaflet) |
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| leaflet.offline | Offline tile caching | ~20 | Estimate based on GitHub |
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| idb | IndexedDB wrapper for offline storage | ~30 | Estimate based on GitHub |
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| vite-plugin-pwa | Service worker and Workbox integration | ~100 | Estimate based on GitHub |
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| Vitest | Test framework | ~718 | [GitHub: vitest-dev/vitest](https://github.com/vitest-dev/vitest) |
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## Layer 7: Data — The Content That Makes It Useful (~56,000 people)
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| Source | Role | Est. people | Source link |
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| OpenStreetMap | Global map data | ~50,000 | [~2.25M have ever edited; ~50,000 active monthly](https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Stats) |
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| Kartverket / Geonorge | Norwegian Mapping Authority; national geodata infrastructure | ~800 | [kartverket.no](https://www.kartverket.no/) |
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| DSB | Created and maintains the public shelter registry | ~200 | [dsb.no](https://www.dsb.no/) |
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| The shelter builders | Construction, engineering, civil defense planning since the Cold War | ~5,000 | Estimate based on ~556 shelters built 1950s–80s |
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The app's data exists because of Cold War civil defense planning. The shelters
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were built in the 1950s–80s, digitized by DSB, published via Geonorge's open
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data mandate — a chain of decisions spanning 70 years that now fits in a 320 KB
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GeoJSON file.
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## Layer 8: AI-Assisted Development (~6,000 people)
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| Component | Role | Est. people | Source |
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| Anthropic / Claude | Researchers, engineers, safety team | ~1,000 | [anthropic.com](https://www.anthropic.com/) |
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| ML research lineage | Transformers, attention, RLHF, scaling laws — across academia & industry | ~5,000 | Estimate across all contributing institutions |
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| Training data | The collective written output of humanity | incalculable | |
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## Layer 9: Hosting & Distribution (~5,700 people)
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| Component | Role | Contributors | Source |
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| Forgejo / Gitea | Hosts this project at kode.naiv.no; Forgejo forked from Gitea in 2022 | ~800 | [Forgejo: ~230 contributors](https://codeberg.org/forgejo/forgejo); [Gitea: go-gitea/gitea](https://github.com/go-gitea/gitea) |
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| GitHub | Mirror repo + hosts nearly all upstream dependencies | ~3,000 | [~5,000 employees, ~50% engineers](https://kinsta.com/blog/github-statistics/) |
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| F-Droid | Open-source app store infrastructure and review | ~150 | [GitLab: fdroid](https://gitlab.com/fdroid); estimate |
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| Fastlane | Metadata and screenshot tooling | ~1,524 | [GitHub: fastlane/fastlane](https://github.com/fastlane/fastlane) |
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---
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## Summary
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| Layer | People |
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| Physical infrastructure (GPS, ARM, sensors) | ~10,500 |
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| Internet & standards | ~5,250 |
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| Operating systems & runtimes | ~23,800 |
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| Programming languages | ~1,600 |
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| Build tools & dev infrastructure | ~6,700 |
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| Direct libraries (Android) | ~2,100 |
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| Direct libraries (PWA) | ~1,750 |
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| Data (maps, shelters, geodesy) | ~56,000 |
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| AI-assisted development | ~6,000 |
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| Hosting & distribution | ~5,700 |
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| **Conservative total** | **~119,000** |
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This is conservative. It excludes:
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- The millions of OSM mappers globally whose edits feed the tile rendering pipeline
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- Hardware manufacturing (semiconductor fabs, device assembly — millions of workers)
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- The educators who taught all these people their craft
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- The civil defense planners who decided Norway needed public shelters
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- The mathematicians behind Haversine, UTM projections, and geodesy going back centuries
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Including OpenStreetMap's full contributor base and hardware, the number crosses
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**2 million** easily.
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---
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## Notable details
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- **SQLite** — the most widely deployed database engine in the world (in every
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phone, browser, and operating system) — is maintained by
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[3–4 people](https://sqlite.org/crew.html). It powers every shelter lookup
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in this app.
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- **Leaflet** — the JavaScript mapping library used by the PWA — was created by
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[Volodymyr Agafonkin](https://agafonkin.com/) in Kyiv, Ukraine. An emergency
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shelter app built with a mapping library from a country at war.
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- **OpenStreetMap** has ~10 million registered accounts, but only ~50,000 are
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active in any given month. The map tiles this app displays are the work of a
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dedicated minority.
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---
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## Perspective
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For every line of application code, roughly 119,000 people made the tools, data,
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and infrastructure that line depends on. No single company, country, or
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organization could have built this stack alone. Linux (Finland → global), Kotlin
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(Czech Republic/Russia → JetBrains), OSM (UK → global), GPS (US military →
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civilian), Leaflet (Ukraine), SQLite (US, public domain) — this emergency app is
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a product of genuine global cooperation.
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The fact that one person can build a working, offline-capable emergency app in
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under a day is arguably one of the most remarkable expressions of accumulated
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human cooperation — and almost none of it was coordinated by any central
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authority.
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