NPM Is Joining GitHub • Hacker News Board

Re: NPM Is Joining GitHub

#21

Post by hinkley » Mon, Mar 16, 2020, 5:11 PM UTC

sandov wrote: post #2

"Github acquires npm" would be a better title IMO.

I am glad that the npm team will finally have some adult supervision.

Meanwhile, I almost have my team switched to yarn.

Re: NPM Is Joining GitHub

#22

Post by owenwil » Mon, Mar 16, 2020, 5:11 PM UTC

Brendinooo wrote: post #6

I occasionally forget that Microsoft bought GitHub. They certainly don't do anything here to remind me of that fact. How separate from MS has GitHub been in day-to-day operations?

GitHub employees have access to Microsoft internal tools and a Microsoft email address, so I don't think there's too much internal firewalling.

Re: NPM Is Joining GitHub

#23

Post by petey283 » Mon, Mar 16, 2020, 5:11 PM UTC

I worry that this is too much consolidation.

Re: NPM Is Joining GitHub

#24

Post by stephen82 » Mon, Mar 16, 2020, 5:11 PM UTC

fiberoptick wrote: post #10

Embrace, extend, extinguish.

Exactly! https://linux.slashdot.org/story/20/03/16/0137200/windows-su...

Re: NPM Is Joining GitHub

#25

Post by sytse » Mon, Mar 16, 2020, 5:12 PM UTC

Thanks to Microsoft/GitHub for this acquisition. NPM is essential to the Javascript eco-system and it is hard to have a business model for just a registry. In the ruby eco-system the awesome Ruby Together https://rubytogether.org/ was started to run the registry. In this case one of the worlds most valuable companies will run it, which means it doesn't need a not-for-profit.

Regarding "trace a change from a GitHub pull request to the npm package version that fixed it" will there be an API to add a source in case the change was made outside of GitHub? Although I recognize that the vast majority of changes to npm packages happen on GitHub.

Re: NPM Is Joining GitHub

#26

Post by franciscop » Mon, Mar 16, 2020, 5:13 PM UTC

I'm surprised there's not a single mention of "Microsoft" in this or the npm announcement [1], given the old-evil-history of Microsoft and the new-nice Microsoft we have today.

I would expect that there was at least a mention, considering the reason that most modules in npm are still in ES5 is exactly because of the monopolistic practices that Microsoft followed back in the day which makes Internet Explorer still relevant.

Not negative, not positive comment. Just surprising there was no mention. And I do think Microsoft is doing a great job recently with Open Source in general.

[1] https://blog.npmjs.org/post/612764866888007680/next-phase-mo...

Re: NPM Is Joining GitHub

#27

Post by cpr » Mon, Mar 16, 2020, 5:13 PM UTC

Interesting subtle implications that the NPM paying users are going to be moved to Github's distribution system, while maintaining the OSS version of NPM for everyone else.

Re: NPM Is Joining GitHub

#28

Post by fxtentacle » Mon, Mar 16, 2020, 5:13 PM UTC

Oops. So NPM will go down, soon.

I just finished reading this related HN post "How GitHub blocked me (and all my libraries)" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22593595

Re: NPM Is Joining GitHub

#29

Post by markovbot » Mon, Mar 16, 2020, 5:13 PM UTC

austincheney wrote: post #12

Is this a too big to fail kind of charity acquisition?

no, this is microsoft "embracing" (buying control of) a huge point of centralization in a software distribution ecosystem, positioning them to have greater power over a huge number of developers.

Re: NPM Is Joining GitHub

#30

Post by hinkley » Mon, Mar 16, 2020, 5:13 PM UTC

K0nserv wrote: post #14

This seems like a good outcome overall. NPM being such an important pillar in the software supply chain while having an unviable business model and largely being funded by VC money was never a good position to be in. There are problems with more of the software ecosystem consolidating with a single entity but it still feels like an improvement.

It does have a bit of a 'value add' feel to it.

But, you know, we've had decades of companies whose 'business model' is just their exit strategy...