This is somewhat true. I was working at Adobe while building Parcel in my spare time at first, mostly to improve build perf of an app at work. After it launched and we used it internally for a while, Adobe finally started sponsoring the project.

Now, Parcel 2 has a core team of 9 active members from various companies including Adobe, Atlassian, and Eventbrite. We also receive funding on Open Collective which we distribute to a couple independent members of the team who aren’t already sponsored by a company. Definitely a multi-company effort at this point! :)

Just curious how these things go, are there the odd people in these companies full-time working on a sponsored tool or framework, or is this people on a team that's using these, finding some time at the end of a sprint to contribute (like 10% time), or some other model?

Usually it's one or two people using their spare time to eventually get something good enough to work on work time occasionally unless it's 100% aligned with the company goals (e.g. a company like zeit or gatsby)

Parcel is good (and I use it), but it's likely if someone had pitched it internally I'd bet someone would have said "Webpack is good enough for us". At least that's how it would have gone at the places I've worked at.

Originally that's how it happened: I was working on a product and frustrated with build perf, so built parcel in my spare time to scratch that itch. Eventually convinced the team to adopt it.

Atlassian has 2 full time engineers working on Parcel now though, so they've made a pretty big investment.

wild. didn’t realize that Adobe was behind Parcel. Love it, but it isn’t all that often that it’s truly zero-conf. regardless, it almost always seems easier than Webpack.