I wouldn't trust any statistic on that one too much here, to be honest. But the general problem is just that free software development is a minority in general. I am not sure if this is a broad downwards trend right now, or just random fluctuation. Not that it makes much of a difference in absolute numbers. In any case, I am pretty sure free software is here to stay.
It's a very interesting topic, after all.
So, the question is why is free software development generally just chugging along. I have thought about this a couple of times, and I think there are a few simple reasons.
The first reason is mindblowingly simple:
No money.
Like it or not, but people have to actually pay bills, whether they like it or not. This is a fact. I don't like the fact, I don't like capitalism, but I am aware of reality.
If you like to work in a free software project, you usually can't expect any money at all.
For the average citizen in the capitalist society, there are not many options:
- Become very rich
- Reduce your expenses to zero (good luck!)
- Find someone else to pay you
Usually, free software work is voluntary work with no pay at all. So if you are not of the lucky few who are not forced to work for money, you either can do free software projects until you run out of money, or you can only do them on top of a job that pays you money.
Both options suck. The job will simply suck out time and energy out of you, and your concentration runs low in the remaining time you have for your project.
On the other hand, the proprietary world is where the money to be found. The BIG money, I like to add. That's not to justify proprietary software at all. But this is the sad truth. We have to be aware of the truth, so we can deal with it.
Face it, software development is a day-filling task. Games can be become incredibly complex, and so far, if you don't have the basic needs met to make your dream come true, you simply will have a hard time of getting anywhere.
Of course, a couple of small but amazingly interesting projects have popped up over the years
despite the money problem. But only a few of them managed it to the end, or their development is just painfully slow.
As long the money problem is not solved, free software development will have an incredibly hard time to carry on.
Most people simply have absolutely no clue how they can make free software development AND have their basic needs fulfilled. For most people it's an either-or.
I'm not saying free software must be led like a company, I'm just saying that as long creators don't have money, they usually can't do very much.
Another (theoretical) solution would be basic income, it might help here, but I don't think the idea is very popular to spread across nations. I'm simply too disillusioned.
But money might not be the only problem.
The other big hurdle is ideology.
The free software ideology is simply not widely accepted in the general public. Hell, a huge chunk of people don't even know what it is!
The few people who do understand free software often reject the concept as too radical. Many people are scared of freedom.
Also, the concept of copyright is being hammered into the heads of basically everyone since birth. It's seems so natural like the (true) belief that the sun rises tomorrow. Free software is (kind of) challenging this idea, obviously a lot of people will feel attacked. If you challenge copyright, even slightly, it seems to many that you are attacking truth itself. I've talked to people who honestly believe that the end of copyright would mean the end of creativity. It's very difficult to justify free software under such assumptions. It's not surprising that free software people are often portrayed as crazy or hostile.
Another current problem is sheer mass.
The majority of developers work for proprietary. That's a fact. Let's not forget that free software is mainly a political movement. There must be always the push to convince more creators. This is
hard. But also incredibly important. Of course proprietary software is beating our asses in terms of sheer mass. That's easy when you have a huge majority of skilled people working for you. So the long-term political goal is to take more and more brainpower away from proprietary software towards free software.
See: It's not that there aren't great artists, developers, etc. capable of making truly amazing games. That's not the problem. The problem is that they work for proprietary software.
If we manage to convince more creators join our cause, that will solve a lot of problems. But right now, it's still a huge hurdle to overcome.