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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?

#531

Post by abxytg »

mindfulmore wrote: post #497
phpnode wrote: post #374

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is a really bad look for Sebastian. He started babel and made the most contributions overall, but he hasn't been involved in the project for 5 years at this point. He left to join Facebook and babel would have died if it weren't for the efforts of Logan, Henry, Nicolo and the other contributors. The original post on the babel website was written in response to him investigating the babel funding situatio…

deleted

Yea, tbh this is 100% my read on this situation. Wouldn't go near the dude or his work after this. Spent way too long at Facebook where no one ever has to sell a product and now doesn't understand at all how money works.

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

#532

Post by endisneigh »

mindfulmore wrote: post #520
WORMS_EAT_WORMS wrote: post #516

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> $130k for a senior developer in the United States is nothing. People at FANG are making 3-4x that annually. Right, hence my out of touch comment. This just doubles down.

Not sure what you're taking issue with here.

$130K is objectively not a joke of a salary in the United States. That's roughly 90th percentile.

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

#534

Post by vfclists »

FiberBundle wrote: post #300

This whole thread is basically a testament as to why the OSS model, unfortunately, is broken. Very competent people are expected to write widely used software for a salary that basically merely guarantees subsistence. It never ceases to amaze me how great software engineers allow themselves to be exploited in such a way. If you consider the societal impact that some of these projects have and the skill set that some…

117 million downloads every month.

1 cent a download = 117,000,000 cents = $1,170,000.

So the project is dying because they cannot get every downloader to pay 1 cent for every download.

Even at 1/10 cent it would still come to $117,000

This is how screwed up open source is.

An advanced technological industry which doesn't have infrastructure in place to collect fractions of cents per product delivery.

Why can't the software be downloaded using an API using a key you have to pay for or something?

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

#535

Post by patrec »

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

I think you should entertain the possibility that not all that salary gap is explained by geography. I suspect that one of three things would have to be true of either you or the two hypothetical devs:

1. You are really bad at salary negotiation.

2. You would be willing to take an enormous (> 50%) salary hit to work on Babel compared to what you could get in industry.

3. You are insufficiently skilled to lead a project like Babel.

This is based on the conjecture that a suitable lead for Babel should have no problem finding a FAANG job and doing a quick search for average FAANG salaries in the UK.

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

#536

Post by nsonha »

serverholic wrote: post #343
5560675260 wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I had to hazard a guess, it's more of a "thing that somehow got into our React toolchain" and less of a "most critical part".

A thing that, if removed, would be a huge pain.

No not really, typescript or esbuild, among other things.

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

#537

Post by polishdude20 »

phpnode wrote: post #374
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…

I think this is a really bad look for Sebastian. He started babel and made the most contributions overall, but he hasn't been involved in the project for 5 years at this point. He left to join Facebook and babel would have died if it weren't for the efforts of Logan, Henry, Nicolo and the other contributors. The original post on the babel website was written in response to him investigating the babel funding situatio…

Yeah you just don't publically call out one of your employees. That's just a dick move at that point. Solve this problem internally and don't throw your developer under the bus because you didn't manage them better.

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

#539

Post by nsonha »

wanttobethatkid wrote: post #279
wanttobethatkid wrote: post #182

Fun Fact: Babel was created by a school kid

Come on people, why the down vote. I meant that as the compliment. Look at my user name.

I think you're downvoted for not having a point relevant to the discussion.

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

#540

Post by olingern »

andrew_ wrote: post #470
olingern wrote: post #456

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not correct

It actually is correct. He's routinely dogged the project and team after leaving the project: https://twitter.com/sebmck/status/1176534097881006080 , and was a founding member: https://engineering.fb.com/2016/10/11/web/yarn-a-new-package...

Having worked on both projects, I can tell you that it's more complex than what you're making it out to be.
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