"We're looking for the outsized impact, which tends to be big projects with few maintainers that we all rely on," Daigle said. Big == Important

There is a very interesting article about the scale of distances in space. Google "If the sun were the size of a grain of sand." Facinating read.

Although this survey has a much smaller population, the results are very similar. See the 2005 survey here: http://www.bsdcertification.or... Figure 2.1 on page 9. Full disclosure: I created and ran the survey and was the co-author of the report.