While I don't particularly like ads in Node.js libraries output, I do not like that NPM has anything to say in regards to whether ads are permitted or not.
Think about it, why is should a distributor be allowed to ban a producer?
NPM Bans Terminal Ads
331–340 of 377 posts
Re: NPM Bans Terminal Ads
#332The rationale from the author of the package who adding advertising is enlightening and definitely worth reading. https://feross.org/funding-experiment-recap/
> If even I – with my fortunate position – can’t make a comfortable living working on open source, then how is anyone else supposed to make it work? If living comfortably is Feross's goal, why not get a job? This is a high profile programmer in one of the highest demand, highest-programmer-wage places in the world. What am I missing?
Working for someone else is a last resort for some of us once all of our other ambitions have failed.
Re: NPM Bans Terminal Ads
#333While I don't particularly like the idea of stuffing ads into npm logs, I don't have the same visceral negative reaction that many people have in these HN threads on this topic. The overwhelming majority of the people complaining about this are well-paid tech workers writing code for well-funded companies that profit off of open source code without providing any reciprocal value to the open source projects in return.…
You are missing the point of open-source.
They are working for FREE because they choose to.
If companies are using the FREE software, they are not required morally or legally to contribute anything back.
Re: NPM Bans Terminal Ads
#334The rationale from the author of the package who adding advertising is enlightening and definitely worth reading. https://feross.org/funding-experiment-recap/
I think another thing the author misses is that Standard is _just_ a formatting library. It doesn't need/deserve as much resources as libraries that do more and deliver more value for the developer/company such as Vue, webpack etc.
> Standard is _just_ a formatting library
It's just a configuration file for a formatting library that someone else(s) wrote.
Re: NPM Bans Terminal Ads
#335Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 pa…
Yea I didn't phrase that correctly. I tried to address it elsewhere but it just seems odd that these tiny projects are making so much noise over money while these larger, more integral ones have been going on for decades, providing much more value without turning your install process into a gofundme campaign.
FWIW, I agree. I don't remember the name of the NPM module from the article I just read, and I sure wouldn't have paid them any money if I had been alerted as part of their experiment.
I only donate to obscure Debian derivatives though, so...
Re: NPM Bans Terminal Ads
#336Hopefully someone at Canonical takes a hint for Ubuntu’s default motd.
For context: https://motd.ubuntu.com
Re: NPM Bans Terminal Ads
#337Earlier quoted context omitted.
No. I haven't looked through many js packages. I could make it without any effort via: > https://github.com/feross/funding/blob/master/messages.json Currently it's "manually curated" which is a fancy way of saying, it's my own custom ad-tag that doesn't call an adserver. Replacing one field with a function that is immediately called and getting your value out, is how most people would integrate an ad-tag. Using DFP o…
So you’re talking about software which doesn’t exist, right? This seems like a silly slippery slope argument.
> So you’re talking about software which doesn’t exist, right?
It exists on my computer right now (didn't use an actual admanager, just coded a remote call). You want to believe the gun pointed at the door with a string on the trigger and doorknob is not a danger because you don't want to open the door. Good luck with whatever.
Re: NPM Bans Terminal Ads
#338Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is an unfair go at the poster. He said "I'm not arguing that npm install logs should be packed full of ads (it shouldn't)." That's clear as can be. He's asking the same question I am, how do we get sufficient funding for these projects. Re your patreon suggestion, I thought we recently had an article where someone got little to nothing on that. > or getting hired by FAANG So one way to support foss software is t…
> That's clear as can be. He's asking the same question I am, how do we get sufficient funding for these projects. We don't. Only a fool would expect to make a living wage giving something away for free. From the beginning FOSS has been either interested individuals or employees at corporations with a vested interest. There's no reason we should expect that John Q Developer independently working on a bunch of NPM mod…
> There's no reason we should expect that John Q Developer independently working on a bunch of NPM modules to be compensated by the world at large.
With all due respect, I feel this is a lack of imagination. We could have said the same thing about soup kitchens, or basic income, or social welfare, or anything else that doesn't cleanly draw profit.
So yes, it doesn't work. At least not until we demand it does and distort the legal, social, and cultural frameworks around it.
As one solitary example, what about a shift to using copyfarleft licensing that only allows MIT-level freedom to nonprofits and co-operatives, while for-profit orgs pay fees instead of just leeching. This has the added bonus of shifting benefit to platform cooperatives, which governments are already starting to ideologically favour as we all see the gleaming metal edge of platform capitalism.
There are a hundred more options if we believe building the commons is better than milking it dry.
Re: NPM Bans Terminal Ads
#339Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you are a software developer and you want to make money, sell your software. If you want give away your software for free, do that. Giving away software for free and then using adware to make up the difference is something else entirely. If someone wants to make money with developing software, they have many many ways of doing that. Framing this as poor starving software developers getting the shaft by for-profit…
In other words, don't do what Google, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Reddit, or Yahoo did. I appreciate the sentiment (and it's what I do with my own hilariously unsuccessful software), but you can't walk into a room full of data-driven aspiring entrepreneurs and tell them to do exactly what the market has shown it doesn't want, even though that would be better for all of us.
Building a particular thing using a set of tools is not the same as infecting a set of tools with a thing.
More to the point: by injecting advertising directly into packages distributed through a package repository and/or a specific toolset / toolchain / language, the parties injecting the advertising are exploiting and mining the accrued trust of that project, toolchain, and/or language, for personal gain.
It's a tragedy-of-the-commons effect: socialised costs (building of the larger toolchain), privatised benefits (ads revenue).
The long-term consequence will be a very-well-deserved shunning of the toolchain by others. A cost largely born by the vast majority not acting antisocially.
Re: NPM Bans Terminal Ads
#340Earlier quoted context omitted.
No they don’t. They didn’t find any of those projects and it worked out quite well. Let a thousand flowers bloom.
They need all those projects to surface good ideas and they need all that parallelism to identify mistakes they can avoid. Without it what do they base decisions on? React would be guesswork or an internal tool built in isolation that only solves their specific problems if even that good. This is how software is evolving. If there is no parallel evolution it will take 1000x longer to do so. If it takes 1000x longer t…
And you have made no arguments supporting the notion that they need to fund open source for that to happen.