Be careful what you wish for: Your project might become infrastructure

This talk, presented by Gaël Blondelle and Thabang Mashologu from the Eclipse Foundation, examines the transformation of Open VSX from a community-driven extension registry into essential infrastructure for modern development ecosystems. The session analyzes how increased adoption shifted the usage of Open VSX from human interactions to automated system-level dependencies, necessitating changes in availability, performance, and reliability. The speakers discuss the technical adaptations required for scalability, including CDN-backed distribution, monitoring strategies, and the importance of security measures like automated scanning to protect users from malicious extensions. Finally, the session explores the challenges and considerations involved in transitioning an open source project into productized infrastructure, addressing governance, SLAs, and monetization models.