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Babel is used by millions, so why are we running out of money?

babeljs.io

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Re: Babel is used by millions, so why are we running out of money?

#361

Post by andrew_ »

eplanit wrote: post #352
akmittal wrote: post #105

See what creator of Babel has to say >Babel used by millions, so why are we running out of money? Bluntly: Because funds were misallocated for years, and the project has been too slow to improve. >The reason there's no money is because someone took a $130k annual salary and didn't actually work on the project. https://twitter.com/sebmck/status/1392019586833387522 - So donating money because of this post may not be a…

Management blaming individuals by name (in public no less) shows severe incompetence at the top. I don't doubt he hired a slacker, but that's on management for hiring and retaining that... to the point of demise? Stupid.

Seb is a well-known narcissist, suffering from ego created by his own Twitter myth. I cannot name a single peer among the many circles I converse in which respects the person (another matter for the technical ability). Seb has only to look in a mirror to identify the issues with the current state of the Babel project management.

Re: Babel is used by millions, so why are we running out of money?

#362

Post by JohnWhigham »

loremipsium wrote: post #177

The salary discussion aside. That's what I have always been ad odds with OSS. Nobody is forcing you to put it up for free. Put a price tag on it an sell it. If it doesn't sell, lower the price. If it still doesn't sell, good. Stop trying to force adoption on software that cannot sustain itself. Nobody ever heard oracle scrambling for cash.

Put a price tag on it, and then 5 years later Amazon offers it as-a-service and kills you in your sleep.

Re: Babel is used by millions, so why are we running out of money?

#363

Post by andrew_ »

nwsm wrote: post #353

Here's [0] a blunt take on the situation by Sebastian McKenzie, who left Babel to start Rome Tools. He blames the full time salary of Henry, who he doesn't think contributed enough. [0] https://twitter.com/sebmck/status/1392019586833387522

And a rebuttal by Evan You, absolutely torching Seb for being a massive hypocrite https://twitter.com/youyuxi/status/1392096427313147908

Re: Babel is used by millions, so why are we running out of money?

#364

Post by filearts »

Dah00n wrote: post #144

If you have a problem paying a high salary then don't base the company in a high salary area. Any other place would be just as good and way cheaper. Also the origial author says someone is misappropriating money[1] on top of this! They definitely don't deserve more funding before they fix those two problems. 1: https://mobile.twitter.com/sebmck/status/1392019586833387522

Misallocated and misappropriated are two very different things. The linked tweet makes no mention of misappropriation.

Re: Babel is used by millions, so why are we running out of money?

#365

Post by EvanYou »

thrdbndndn wrote: post #349
dsr12 wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Creator of Vue.js Evan You's perspective: "Working on a project" doesn't only mean pushing commits. It also means deciding what to do, syncing with committees, running a team structure, thinking about how and where to get funding, and handling the mental pressure of "I'm responsible for this". https://twitter.com/youyuxi/status/1392088730438090756

1. His language sounds like he knew Henry personally. I will take it with a grain of salt. But same applied to creator of the Babel, since he could have beef with Henry. 2. He said lots of circumstantial things about the matter. Namely: 130K isn't high for NYC; he could have and probably had better offer easily; he didn't need to maintain Babel but did, etc. All these are good but didn't answer the direct question, i…

I do know Henry personally and Henry actually consulted me when he was debating whether he should quit his job to work on Babel full time. We also occasionally talk about the burdens of OSS maintenance so I know first hand how hard he's been trying to keep Babel afloat.

That said, a statement from the current most active paid contributor to Babel is probably more convincing: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27116357

Re: Babel is used by millions, so why are we running out of money?

#366

Post by andrew_ »

pjmlp wrote: post #241

Couldn't be more appropriate as today's news, "When software depends on a project thanklessly maintained by a random guy in Nebraska, is open source sustainable?" https://www.theregister.com/2021/05/10/untangling_open_sourc...

I'd argue all day that it's sustainable. The crux of the issue is scale; at what scale does it cease to be sustainable?

Re: Babel is used by millions, so why are we running out of money?

#367

Post by andrew_ »

WesolyKubeczek wrote: post #203
ylyn wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most people aren't even fully aware that Babel is part of their toolchain.

And I thought that such awareness was a part of being good at one's job.

The dependency chain of modern Node projects is bewildering, and I wouldn't expect most developers to sift through the lockfiles and take note of every single dependency in the tree. (And I acknowledge this is an issue with the ecosystem)

Re: Babel is used by millions, so why are we running out of money?

#368

Post by varispeed »

capableweb wrote: post #261

> we settled on $11,000 per month as a baseline salary for working full-time on open source. > For now, Nicolò, Henry, and Jùnliàng will all be paid a temporary rate of $6,000 per month. This doesn't solve the problem, I used to donate to Babel, before they made it apparent they are just interested in funneling the money to one developer. 11K per month?! That is absolutely bananas and same reaction I had the last tim…

Why do you think 11K is a lot? If you compare how much companies make thanks to this project, I am curious why don't they make 100K a month?

Re: Babel is used by millions, so why are we running out of money?

#369

Post by miracle2k »

eplanit wrote: post #352
akmittal wrote: post #105

See what creator of Babel has to say >Babel used by millions, so why are we running out of money? Bluntly: Because funds were misallocated for years, and the project has been too slow to improve. >The reason there's no money is because someone took a $130k annual salary and didn't actually work on the project. https://twitter.com/sebmck/status/1392019586833387522 - So donating money because of this post may not be a…

Management blaming individuals by name (in public no less) shows severe incompetence at the top. I don't doubt he hired a slacker, but that's on management for hiring and retaining that... to the point of demise? Stupid.

He is no longer involved.

Re: Babel is used by millions, so why are we running out of money?

#370

Post by varispeed »

ChrisRR wrote: post #283
capableweb wrote: post #261

> we settled on $11,000 per month as a baseline salary for working full-time on open source. > For now, Nicolò, Henry, and Jùnliàng will all be paid a temporary rate of $6,000 per month. This doesn't solve the problem, I used to donate to Babel, before they made it apparent they are just interested in funneling the money to one developer. 11K per month?! That is absolutely bananas and same reaction I had the last tim…

Exactly, I thought the reason that US developers are so highly paid compared to everywhere else in the world was to offset the high cost of living in silicon valley. $132,000 is almost double my salary is the UK. They could easily get 2 full time UK devs for that, or even more in many EU countries with lower cost of living

> $132,000 is almost double my salary is the UK.

If that's true, then you should probably have a word with your employer. Typical dev pay is 80k (~$120k) or twice as that if contracted.

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