> I personally tend to write much better software if I know there is any chance someone else might see it
Sounds like a personal problem. I'm not sure how to fix it, but it seems like you should take more pride in your work even if nobody will see it.
> Contributing to the dominate project in any space requires working within the constraints of the existing code
This is a GOOD thing. The world doesn't need more half baked open source solutions. The world needs more open source code that many people have carefully worked to perfect. If you have not already worked on a project then you don't understand it and the constraints and compromises that went into the original. I've seen many times where someone has attempted to do better (often in closed source software) and when they were done ended up with a similar mess to the first as there are often not-obvious things involved in the original decision that you end up reinventing.
> Sounds like a Zero-Sum Fallacy.
Not a Fallacy - there are only limited number of people working on open source. There is only a limited amount any one person can contribute. As such there often is a zero sum.
Again, don't get me wrong - there are sometimes good reasons to start from scratch. However if you don't understand the real problems of the original you cannot hope to fix them. Many of the problems are political - there are a number of people working on open source that I cannot stand and thus I refuse to work on projects they work on so if I'm really interested a new project is sometime the only option. Sometimes rewriting in Haskell or Rust or whatever the language of the day is really is worth doing. However the default should be work on a project that is already there.
Sounds like a personal problem. I'm not sure how to fix it, but it seems like you should take more pride in your work even if nobody will see it.
> Contributing to the dominate project in any space requires working within the constraints of the existing code
This is a GOOD thing. The world doesn't need more half baked open source solutions. The world needs more open source code that many people have carefully worked to perfect. If you have not already worked on a project then you don't understand it and the constraints and compromises that went into the original. I've seen many times where someone has attempted to do better (often in closed source software) and when they were done ended up with a similar mess to the first as there are often not-obvious things involved in the original decision that you end up reinventing.
> Sounds like a Zero-Sum Fallacy.
Not a Fallacy - there are only limited number of people working on open source. There is only a limited amount any one person can contribute. As such there often is a zero sum.
Again, don't get me wrong - there are sometimes good reasons to start from scratch. However if you don't understand the real problems of the original you cannot hope to fix them. Many of the problems are political - there are a number of people working on open source that I cannot stand and thus I refuse to work on projects they work on so if I'm really interested a new project is sometime the only option. Sometimes rewriting in Haskell or Rust or whatever the language of the day is really is worth doing. However the default should be work on a project that is already there.