Originally Posted by Yarin
In closed source the programmers are paid, so they're just there for the money. Which means rotten code and huge shortcuts if they can get away with it. In open source projects most of the people there want to program, which often (but not always, I know) means less sloppy code. And I bet you have a few 'senior programmers' who've retired from the professional field, and are taking their massive amounts of experience to the code of open source projects, at the very least just as a hobby.