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I've Just Liberated My Modules

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Re: I've Just Liberated My Modules

#401

Post by overgard »

losvedir wrote: post #342
overgard wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "attention" he's going to get is people annoyed at him for breaking their shit carelessly over a petty dispute with a third party. I have some stuff at work that uses NPM, and I don't know if he broke it, but my thoughts right now are "fuck that guy" and "I would never use NPM again if I knew how catastrophically badly designed it is" and more broadly "if the JS community is this amateur and petty I'm writing my…

> but my thoughts right now are ... "I would never use NPM again if I knew how catastrophically badly designed it is" Then the protest was effective.

only in the most narrow sense. His cause, whatever it is, isn't furthered, but now everyone involved (including him) looks bad, and a lot of innocent people have had their time wasted fixing something that shouldn't have broken. It's a loss for everyone involved. He looks petty and untrustworthy, npm looks amateurish, kik gets bad publicity, and everyone using this junk is stuck with their face in their palms.

Re: I've Just Liberated My Modules

#402

Post by gnaritas »

MaulingMonkey wrote: post #41
gnaritas wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Wrong, that is the prototype of a knee-jerk action. No it isn't; and he made that clear, he objects to their actions and is taking action of his own. > Last but not least, whining about it in public in the hope "something will happen" is pathetic. No, it's called protesting, and it's exactly the correct thing to do. Calling it pathetic is itself pathetic. > hat I'd suggest (though now it is too late): Rename the mo…

> You're completely missing his point if you think this suggestion is at all reasonable. Is this the kik we're talking about? http://dev.kik.com/ https://trademarks.justia.com/858/93/kik-85893307.html Is the point that kik should just give up on their company trademark?

> Is the point that kik should just give up on their company trademark?

You can't possibly think that's the point he's making. Did you even bother to read the article?

Re: I've Just Liberated My Modules

#403

Post by ktRolster »

fungi wrote: post #313
bluefox wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a very good question. I was going to make the argument that the author merely continued what NPM Inc. started, and that if you fault him, you should also fault NPM Inc., but then I noticed that NPM Inc. didn't unpublish his module, but transfered the name to another account, which is much worse, if you think about it. The ultimate conclusion is that if it's anyone's fault, it is the fault of the person who re…

couple of days ago i was all smug from upvotes for calling npm best practise. i take that back, npm is a security risk that should be avoided. now i need a new package manager.

Well, now I'll upvote you for saying something else that seems wise, so it's all good.

Re: I've Just Liberated My Modules

#404

Post by Ericson2314 »

cookrn wrote: post #169
_nfin wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So we need gpg signed packages :> And... all packages should be namespaced under the author who published them. And... I kind of want to say "once it's published, it's forever".

What if such a system was implemented using IPFS[0] (or similar) for storage? [0] https://github.com/ipfs/ipfs

Somewhat related, I just coincidentally stumbled upon https://github.com/alexanderGugel/ied . "Upcomming Nix-inspired features", to paraphrase their README, could well prevent this debacle.

(And btw, We Nix users very much do hope to start using IPFS :).)

Re: I've Just Liberated My Modules

#405

Post by gnaritas »

oldmanjay wrote: post #35
gnaritas wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Wrong, that is the prototype of a knee-jerk action. No it isn't; and he made that clear, he objects to their actions and is taking action of his own. > Last but not least, whining about it in public in the hope "something will happen" is pathetic. No, it's called protesting, and it's exactly the correct thing to do. Calling it pathetic is itself pathetic. > hat I'd suggest (though now it is too late): Rename the mo…

He made it clear he doesn't want to consider it a knee jerk, which has approximately zero relationship to whether it actually is. Protesting trademark law sounds like a lot of useless fun. It may be the "correct" thing to do, but it will have no result.

> He made it clear he doesn't want to consider it a knee jerk, which has approximately zero relationship to whether it actually is.

A knee jerk reaction is an immediate unthinking emotional reaction; when you detail out your thought process in a lengthy well articulated blog post to explain your actions, it isn't knee jerk by definition. There was nothing at all unthinking about his actions or his protest. Point in fact, when someone explains to you why something isn't a knee jerk reaction, it automatically isn't. His making it clear has an approximately 100% relationship to the fact that it isn't.

Re: I've Just Liberated My Modules

#406

Post by karmelapple »

sorenjan wrote: post #346
dwg wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having a multitude of small utilities like this is a great thing with many advantages. It may seem simple to write leftpad, but if 1000 projects that need it all write their own version, there will be at least 2000 more software bugs out there in the wild because of it. If you think that's rediculous, you're not being realistic about the huge disparity in skill levels of industry programmers as well as the considerab…

I've never used npm, but doesn't it take at least as long to find, evaluate, and install a package like left-pad as it would to just write the function yourself when you find you need it?

Personally, no, but even if it did, what if a bug is found in the future? The community fixes the bug, not necessarily you!

Re: I've Just Liberated My Modules

#407

Post by skeoh »

minitech wrote: post #339
yazaddaruvala wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lol, so if I'm understanding you correctly: Someone was nice enough to write some software, that is clearly indispensable. They were nice enough to not charge money for it. They were nice enough to support it, again free of cost. They were also nice enough to open source it, such that if it ever became more convenient for you to fork/change/do whatever you want with, that you would be able to. And when that same pers…

Hah, “indispensable”. It pads strings. Here, I wrote an alternative: function padLeft(s, width, padCharacter) { var d = width - s.length; return d

Keep in mind that `String.prototype.repeat` exists in far fewer contexts than a simple loop. The whole point of using a module is that you don't have to worry about _how_ it works when implementing it in your project.

Re: I've Just Liberated My Modules

#408

Post by overgard »

nordsieck wrote: post #157

One interesting thing to me, is that it is pretty clear that the kik lawyers pretty dramatically over enforced their trademark. For those who don't know, the purpose of trademarks is to prevent customer confusion; essentially we don't want people to be able to sell cheap knock-offs of someone else's thing without the general public being able to easily distinguish between them. In practical terms, trademarks are "sco…

The Apple thing doesn't work though, for a specific reason: it's a very common word/name.

Smith is a very common surname. If one person starts the Smith Automobile Company and another person starts the Smith Farm, obviously there's no issue there. That's because none of us invented "Smith", it's understood to be a common name, etc.

On the other hand, if I start "The Google Paper Company", I'm pretty damn sure I would quickly and easily lose that case, despite the fact that google does not sell paper. And nobody would think that is weird, because Google is very obvious an invention (Yeah, I know, "googol", but the spelling makes it unique).

"Kik" is a lot closer to the "google" situation than the "apple" situation.

Re: I've Just Liberated My Modules

#409

Post by overgard »

aioprisan wrote: post #86
x0ner wrote: post #17

Not sure I follow this completely... You start a project with the same name as a company, which owns the registered brand and are surprised when some 3rd party complies with legal suggestions to make an adjustment? Seems kind of silly to expect that NPM would want to fight for your project name when you didn't seem to do your own due diligence when picking a name. Also, a bit backwards to go remove all your modules a…

Is that really silly? Coming up with a project name in an unrelated project in the technology space? That's akin to Ajax Detergent ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ajax_(cleaning_product) ) wanting all jQuery wiped off because there is a $.ajax() function in jQuery. Look, it even has a $! Chaching with every occurrence!

It's not an unrelated technology space! Kik is a messaging platform. It's EASILY conceivable that they might want to publish a nodejs API. It's also easily conceivable someone looking to interact with their platform would type npm install kik. They're entirely in their rights to see this as stepping on their turf.

Re: I've Just Liberated My Modules

#410

Post by repomies69 »

indiv0 wrote: post #397
patio11 wrote: post #385

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"So what you're saying is, your computers cannot possibly not continue damaging the plaintiff's interests." "That's correct." "You're being honest with me." "Yes, your Honor." "Will the computers continue harming the plaintiff's interests if shut off?" "... That would be dreadfully inconvenient, your Honor." "Do you have a more convenient solution?" "No, your Honor." "You are hereby ordered to turn off your computers…

How about a blockchain-based NPM? Can't take all the computers down. Legal, shmegal.

Yep, but someone should implement that first. Package repositories have pretty much centralized control still, and will have for foreseeable future.
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