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Faker.js is now a community controlled project

fakerjs.dev

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Re: Faker.js is now a community controlled project

#21

Post by elia_is_me »

throwaway858 wrote: post #10

It doesn't feel like there was enough criticism against GitHub for their decision to ban the developer of faker/colors. This was his own corner of the internet for him to publish his own personal projects. I understand the decision for npm to take ownership of his packages, because npm is a community package repository owned by, and for, the community. All community package repositories have some sort of policy for p…

your GitHub account is not yours but GitHub's property, they just do not claim that before they ban your account.

All cloud services do the similar things.

Re: Faker.js is now a community controlled project

#22

Post by goodoldneon »

throwaway858 wrote: post #10

It doesn't feel like there was enough criticism against GitHub for their decision to ban the developer of faker/colors. This was his own corner of the internet for him to publish his own personal projects. I understand the decision for npm to take ownership of his packages, because npm is a community package repository owned by, and for, the community. All community package repositories have some sort of policy for p…

Freedom of speech doesn’t mean you can do whatever you want on someone else’s server. The project was hosted on GitHub, so GitHub can take significant action to protect the community. He can host his project elsewhere if he doesn’t agree with GitHub’s actions

Re: Faker.js is now a community controlled project

#23

Post by smt88 »

throwaway858 wrote: post #10

It doesn't feel like there was enough criticism against GitHub for their decision to ban the developer of faker/colors. This was his own corner of the internet for him to publish his own personal projects. I understand the decision for npm to take ownership of his packages, because npm is a community package repository owned by, and for, the community. All community package repositories have some sort of policy for p…

> It doesn't feel like there was enough criticism against GitHub for their decision to ban the developer of faker/colors.

HN, at least, had a ton of discussion on this[1]. People advocated both ways.

> This was his own corner of the internet for him to publish his own personal projects.

No, it wasn't. It was Github's corner of the internet and then it was Microsoft's. If he just wanted a place to publish his personal projects, he could have put them on a personal, self-hosted website.

By putting them on a social network, like Github, he is submitting to their whims. He doesn't have any legal right to stay on that site if they want to kick him off of it.

He also wasn't the only author. Other people contributed to his repos. He was happy to receive the benefits of Github, and he should also realize that it comes with some loss of control.

Notably, he eventually used Github as a platform to deploy a Trojan to thousands of unsuspecting users. The other circumstances don't matter. Microsoft can and should remove Trojans from Github.

1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29877745

Re: Faker.js is now a community controlled project

#24

Post by nrmitchi »

labrador wrote: post #14

I'm surprised the blockchain gang isn't coming up with a solution for trustless npm packages or is it that a blockchain can't solve the problem of a trusted developer suddenly becoming untrustworthy?

> solve the problem of a trusted developer suddenly becoming untrustworthy?

This would be an exceptionally hard problem to solve, with-or-without blockchain.

Could you develop a system where any new releases are required to be reviewed and "signed off" by a random assortment of users before becoming "active"? Sure.

Is "blockchain" necessary for that? No.

Re: Faker.js is now a community controlled project

#25

Post by nightpool »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #13
throwaway858 wrote: post #10

It doesn't feel like there was enough criticism against GitHub for their decision to ban the developer of faker/colors. This was his own corner of the internet for him to publish his own personal projects. I understand the decision for npm to take ownership of his packages, because npm is a community package repository owned by, and for, the community. All community package repositories have some sort of policy for p…

> It doesn't feel like there was enough criticism against GitHub for their decision to ban the developer of faker/colors. He's not banned: https://github.com/Marak You have to keep in mind that his changes were basically indistinguishable from a security breach of his account. Nobody really sabotages their own repos in a malicious manner like this. Suspending his account while they investigated doesn't seem like a st…

It was a malicious act to the users of his project, sure. But how was it a malicious act to GitHub? I'm glad to hear that they reversed the suspension, but without understanding why it was suspended in the first place, it leaves open the question of what GitHub's motives were in the whole situation.

If DHH decided that Rails was contributing more harm to the world then good, and tried to remove it from GitHub, would GitHub lock his account and restore his repos "on behalf of the community", to side with the smooth operation of the open source ecosystem over a user's personal decisions? To what extent has GitHub decided that they "know best" for the open source community?

Re: Faker.js is now a community controlled project

#26

Post by przemelek »

Hmm, but as I understand original developer was rather pissed off by situation when devs are working on projects in theirs own time, and those projects sometimes become important tools to lower costs of creating software for big companies, and authors are not getting a dime and are forced to use some kinds of sponsorship and so on.... In such case making one of tools "community" owned smells like some kind of dick move, even if original wasn't doing too many commits.

Working for companies we are taking big bucks for writing some glorified invoicing systems (let be honest 90% or 99% of business logic is "move from screen to DB, move from DB to screen"), but code which is often important part of whole process is created for free by some folks. Strange.

Re: Faker.js is now a community controlled project

#27

Post by scrollaway »

elia_is_me wrote: post #21
throwaway858 wrote: post #10

It doesn't feel like there was enough criticism against GitHub for their decision to ban the developer of faker/colors. This was his own corner of the internet for him to publish his own personal projects. I understand the decision for npm to take ownership of his packages, because npm is a community package repository owned by, and for, the community. All community package repositories have some sort of policy for p…

your GitHub account is not yours but GitHub's property, they just do not claim that before they ban your account. All cloud services do the similar things.

This isn’t how it works at all. It’s not how copyright law works, it’s not how property law works, and it’s certainly not how cloud services work.

What isn’t yours is your “right” to use the service.

Re: Faker.js is now a community controlled project

#28

Post by OrangeMonkey »

labrador wrote: post #14

I'm surprised the blockchain gang isn't coming up with a solution for trustless npm packages or is it that a blockchain can't solve the problem of a trusted developer suddenly becoming untrustworthy?

Blockchain is a solution to a problem that doesn't exist in the real world in any appreciable sense.

Re: Faker.js is now a community controlled project

#29

Post by rrjjww »

nrmitchi wrote: post #24
labrador wrote: post #14

I'm surprised the blockchain gang isn't coming up with a solution for trustless npm packages or is it that a blockchain can't solve the problem of a trusted developer suddenly becoming untrustworthy?

> solve the problem of a trusted developer suddenly becoming untrustworthy? This would be an exceptionally hard problem to solve, with-or-without blockchain. Could you develop a system where any new releases are required to be reviewed and "signed off" by a random assortment of users before becoming "active"? Sure. Is "blockchain" necessary for that? No.

I find this line of thinking frustrating and dismissive of new(er) technology. Is "blockchain" necessary for anything? Probably not. Is it potentially the best solution when compared to the alternatives and weighed on its pros and cons? Maybe - but one has to be willing to investigate before dismissing it.

Re: Faker.js is now a community controlled project

#30

Post by manquer »

nightpool wrote: post #25
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It doesn't feel like there was enough criticism against GitHub for their decision to ban the developer of faker/colors. He's not banned: https://github.com/Marak You have to keep in mind that his changes were basically indistinguishable from a security breach of his account. Nobody really sabotages their own repos in a malicious manner like this. Suspending his account while they investigated doesn't seem like a st…

It was a malicious act to the users of his project, sure. But how was it a malicious act to GitHub? I'm glad to hear that they reversed the suspension, but without understanding why it was suspended in the first place, it leaves open the question of what GitHub's motives were in the whole situation. If DHH decided that Rails was contributing more harm to the world then good, and tried to remove it from GitHub, would…

It was malicious act to Github's users.

Github first responsibility comes to the community of users it supports, then to any individual user. Free speech/ personal choice / Freedom of expression come secondary to the welfare of its users.

Is it a slippery slope ? Yes, but Github does not have a choice if it cared about the interest its community

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