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NPM Bans Terminal Ads

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Re: NPM Bans Terminal Ads

#311

Post by BeetleB »

liability wrote: post #47
icebraining wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Adware is malware This seems like an overreaction. Are HN ads (those links to YC company jobs) malware? According to feross, the ads were just static hardcoded messages. I find it distasteful, but I don't see how it's "malware".

The entire advertising industry is scum. I worked in it for two years and wish I never did. That's a sin I now atone for by discouraging younger developers from making the same mistake, using the harshest language I think dang will permit. It doesn't matter if there is no telemetry (and if this were to be normalized, there would eventually be telemetry. Such are the economic incentives in the ad industry. When it's p…

>That's a sin I now atone for by discouraging younger developers from making the same mistake, using the harshest language I think dang will permit.

I'm not against your crusade. I would suggest that instead you pick up some books on how to influence people (not talking just about Dale Carnegie here), as well as how to present an argument. Harsh language, shaming, having an absolutist/binary stance, making broad claims without proper support, and not demonstrating understanding with those who are discussing the topic with you will not get you far.

> Advertising is propaganda inherently contrary to the interests of anybody subjected to it.

All it takes is for me to think of one counterexample to decide you're not worth listening to.

> It's rife with psychological manipulation.

Did you not spend time to think of other things that you might accept as OK that is also rife with psychological manipulation?

> The relationship between advertisers and consumers is inherently adversarial

Once again: All I need to do is think of one counterexample where both parties gained value (monetarily and psychologically) to conclude "This guy doesn't know what advertising is".

Re: NPM Bans Terminal Ads

#312

Post by BeetleB »

heyoni wrote: post #168
zelon88 wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I release a ton of my work with open source licensing and I've never thought of it as a revenue stream. If people are financially burdened by making their project open-source; then don't make it open source. Donating something to the community and then getting offended when nobody reciprocates is disingenuous. It's part of the problem with "freemium" software these days where developers think I should be indebted to…

That’s a good point you bring up...where do we draw the line? Lots of projects use Debian and docker, etc...is it even ethical to donate to an npm package before donating to the dozens of free tech layers node sits on top of?

>Lots of projects use Debian and docker, etc...is it even ethical to donate to an npm package before donating to the dozens of free tech layers node sits on top of?

Are you asking whether it is ethical to do something that the authors have explicitly said is OK?

Re: NPM Bans Terminal Ads

#313

Post by slang800 »

pixelbath wrote: post #281
slang800 wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They do that by selling support, or additional non-free features bundled into an "enterprise edition" (at least in the case of Docker). I don't think that's something Feross or other open source maintainers are interested in doing.

Fair point, but it's inaccurate to say we can't make money off software we give away for free.

I'm not saying that we are literally unable to make money off of free software. We can and donations / advertising / GPL license exemptions / crowd-funding all work to some degree.

My point was that even though the "don't give it away for free" model works, we should still try to improve the profitability of funding models where we can give software away for free.

Re: NPM Bans Terminal Ads

#314

Post by slang800 »

fuball63 wrote: post #307
slang800 wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a good article about this practice here: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/selling-exceptions.en.html Usually you wouldn't use the MIT license to do it, but it's the same idea.

Fascinating article, is this common practice? Anyone know of companies successfully selling license exceptions?

Yes, Oracle does this with MySQL. If you want to use MySQL in a way that the GPL doesn’t permit, then you are supposed to buy a license. I have no idea if they are making a lot of money from this.

Re: NPM Bans Terminal Ads

#315

Post by yebyen »

heyoni wrote: post #245
grogenaut wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't live without a heart, but most people don't get cancer, is it ethical for me to donate to the American cancer society but not the American heart association because Cancer is built on the heart? No it's my donation I'll donate where I want. If I find joy in donating to a small oss dev instead of a strategic donation to a well organized large one then that's what I do.

Ok, I wasn't confused before but now I am. Look, all I'm saying is if some javascript developer guilts me into donating to open source, the right thing for me to do (I feel) would be to start from the top of the open source chain. * Operating system * Code versioning * Container system * CI/CD etc... It's a long way down before I get to "standard - the javascript linter configuration file".

That's a bit like arguing that Bernie Sanders should give up his housing in Vermont, because No True Socialist would own a house. A good action which is done with good intentions is wholely good, regardless of other good or bad actions that may occur in the same space.

You could donate to all of those projects, but there's no moral imperative to visit them all in order of importance, just because they all played a part.

A permissive license is permission to behave otherwise, and just like Open Source contributions are made voluntarily, your support in kind should be on a voluntary basis too.

Re: NPM Bans Terminal Ads

#316

Post by icebraining »

esotericn wrote: post #117
liability wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Adware being considered malware used to be the norm. The temptation of money has normalized adware, but being normalized doesn't make it any less malicious. Subjecting people to advertising is an inherently malicious act.

Yep. Adware is malware. It's software that does a thing the user doesn't want it to do. That's definitional. About the only exception I can think of would be oldschool stuff like the AllAdvantage toolbar that would pay users for watching ads. That was intentionally installed.

Does the ad for OpenRent make Tubermap malware? If not, what's the difference?

Re: NPM Bans Terminal Ads

#317

Post by prepend »

raesene9 wrote: post #115
prepend wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OSS is sustainable. I don’t like how tidelift seems to present a partial story. If there some OSS crisis that I’m not aware of? Separately, just because something is an approach doesn’t mean it’s worth talking about.

What makes you think OSS is sustainable? There have been various problems with key projects due to lack of funding (e.g. OpenSSL, GPG) There area huge number of libraries are are becoming unmaintained due to lack of resources, which will likely cause problems down the line. I'm not sure I'd call it a crisis, but it's definitely a problem.

I call is sustainable based on the evidence of tons of projects sustaining themselves. Many for decades.

There are flaws in OpenSSL and they were corrected. Sometimes projects like gpg die off. That stinks, but there are other options.

Re: NPM Bans Terminal Ads

#318

Post by esotericn »

icebraining wrote: post #316
esotericn wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep. Adware is malware. It's software that does a thing the user doesn't want it to do. That's definitional. About the only exception I can think of would be oldschool stuff like the AllAdvantage toolbar that would pay users for watching ads. That was intentionally installed.

Does the ad for OpenRent make Tubermap malware? If not, what's the difference?

Ha. Thanks for visiting!

The longer term plan for tubermap, was to essentially have the site be a way of people determining where they should live based on commute times, cost of rent etc.

In that sense what you're calling an ad would actually be the primary purpose of the site, i.e. you'd go and look for apartments now you've figured out (based on that pricing information) where makes sense.

It just never actually materialized because, well, other projects, jobs, etc. The beta version has rent pricing but it was inaccurate due to people selling parking spaces as 1 bedroom flats on APIs etc.

So it's more like kernel.org having a link to lwn.net or something. No-one actually uses the site for navigation because there are better tools for that.

You'll note that none of my sites have third party ad networks, analytics, any of that nonsense. If I use CDN's anywhere subresource integrity should be on but there might be some older stuff that doesn't.

Re: NPM Bans Terminal Ads

#319

Post by caniszczyk »

kyledrake wrote: post #242
zelon88 wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I release a ton of my work with open source licensing and I've never thought of it as a revenue stream. If people are financially burdened by making their project open-source; then don't make it open source. Donating something to the community and then getting offended when nobody reciprocates is disingenuous. It's part of the problem with "freemium" software these days where developers think I should be indebted to…

> I release a ton of my work with open source licensing and I've never thought of it as a revenue stream. That's the problem - nobody treats being an independent OSS dev as a possible career, so we either get 1) extremely privileged people that have the significant amount of time and resources required to contribute substantially for no payment, 2) open source that serves to promote a corporate goal, and 3) less and…

It is a sustainable career if you start a business. If no one wants to pay you for your project, that could be the market telling you something.

At the end of, donations don't work and open source is being fairly well sustained if people seek employment or start a business: https://www.aniszczyk.org/2019/03/25/troubles-with-the-open-...

Re: NPM Bans Terminal Ads

#320

Post by caniszczyk »

adrianN wrote: post #40
prepend wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OSS is sustainable. I don’t like how tidelift seems to present a partial story. If there some OSS crisis that I’m not aware of? Separately, just because something is an approach doesn’t mean it’s worth talking about.

Yes, there is a crisis. Critical infrastructure is maintained by single developers who get no money for their effort, while the companies using their work make billions.

please proof this claim... the majority of open source seems to be sustained extremely well... there are some outliers like OpenSSL and others that have been fixed but the majority is well sustained https://www.aniszczyk.org/2019/03/25/troubles-with-the-open-...
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