  Centralization in code hosting and package management in the 2010s created
fundamental shifts in the social arrangements of open source ecosystems. In a
regime of centralized open source, platform effects can both empower and
detract from communities depending on underlying technical implementations and
governance mechanisms. In this paper we examine Dependabot, Crater and Copilot
as three nascent tools whose existence is predicated on centralized software at
scale. Open source ecosystems are maintained by positive feedback loops between
community members and their outputs. This mechanism is guided by community
standards that foreground notions of accountability and transparency. On one
hand, software at scale supports positive feedback loops of exchange among
ecosystem stakeholders: community members (developers), users, and projects. On
the other, software at scale becomes a commodity to be leveraged and
expropriated. We perform a comparative analysis of attributes across the three
tools and evaluate their goals, values, and norms. We investigate these
feedback loops and their sociotechnical effects on open source communities. We
demonstrate how the values embedded in each case study may diverge from the
foundational ethos of open communities as they are motivated by, and respond to
the platform effects, corporate capture, and centralization of open source
infrastructure. Our analysis finds that these tools embed values that are
reflective of different modes of development - some are transparent and
accountable, and others are not. In doing so, certain tools may have feedback
mechanisms that extend communities. Others threaten and damage communities
ability to reproduce themselves.
