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Npm Raises $2.6M Seed Round

blog.npmjs.org

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Re: Npm Raises $2.6M Seed Round

#71

Post by stormbrew »

slexaxton wrote: post #38
nbody wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quite true. Even though I didn't donate, I wonder why they went for crowdfunding while they were going raising VC funding. I would expect (partial) refunds.

This is a common confusion. The scalenpm crowdfunding was done by the good folks who ran the npm servers for free (mostly nodejitsu) up until the recent switchover to the new infrastructure with Npm, Inc. You can still use the nodejitsu registry for free if you'd like[1]. They arent likely to need as much scaling anymore, but there's still a big cost to running those servers. I don't think there was any foul play whe…

Does this actually make it any better, though? I mean presumably the people who took part in the crowdfunding also assumed they were contributing to the long term hosting costs of npm and the success of the platform itself.

Re: Npm Raises $2.6M Seed Round

#72

Post by wprl »

morganherlocker wrote: post #59
seldo wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I appreciate your paranoia :-) We are wary of announcing all the stuff we're planning given that we don't know how long it will take to build yet and don't want to be accused of vaporware. However, we are planning to announce at least our initial product plans pretty soon. (Probably not in a comment on a HN thread though ;-))

I just want to say that I would gladly pay for private npm hosting. Something along the lines of github's private vs public repos would be extremely valuable. Yes, we could set up our own private npm server, but this seems like an obvious thing to outsource to a service as long as the pricing is not crazy. Best of luck!

FYI Nodejitsu offers private npm...

Re: Npm Raises $2.6M Seed Round

#73

Post by wprl »

williamcotton wrote: post #17

Privately run 'open source' code repositories are not what the open web should run on. I would say that this marks the beginning of the end for npm as anything viable for front-end code repositories and probably for anything related to node. I propose an open-source alternative for front-end JavaScript libraries and dependency management. Anyone calling for npm modules and browserify to rule the day for front-end JS…

I don't know. I think it's fine if a private company that is maintaing the registry also wants to monetize parts of it. They are after all expending considerable effort and resources, and they're doing nothing to stop others from hosting registries.

What would be nice is decentralization — because these registries are so similar to link shorteners I am wondering what a peer to peer registry system would look like a la DNS...

Re: Npm Raises $2.6M Seed Round

#74

Post by tzm »

mikealAgain wrote: post #62
janjongboom wrote: post #30

I'm kept wondering how the whole npm structure will look like. At the bottom of npmjs.org it states: 'Powered by Joyent', but Nodejitsu ran the 'Scale npm' donation campaign to get funds to scale the public npm registry. But Nodejitsu acquired IrisCouch and now offers private npm services. And now izs starts a new company npm inc. that will, well, who knows. But he's former Joyent who power npm, so will running npm t…

Here's the history, hope it helps. I wrote the original version of the npm registry in a day or two on top of CouchDB. I built it quickly and didn't think much about scale. Isaacs continued to improve and maintain that code. At one point he even wrote up an open standard for generic js package registries for CommonJS but they didn't seem to care (they were too busy arguing about promises). At the time I wrote the ini…

Thanks for sharing this.

Re: Npm Raises $2.6M Seed Round

#75

Post by slexaxton »

stormbrew wrote: post #71
slexaxton wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a common confusion. The scalenpm crowdfunding was done by the good folks who ran the npm servers for free (mostly nodejitsu) up until the recent switchover to the new infrastructure with Npm, Inc. You can still use the nodejitsu registry for free if you'd like[1]. They arent likely to need as much scaling anymore, but there's still a big cost to running those servers. I don't think there was any foul play whe…

Does this actually make it any better, though? I mean presumably the people who took part in the crowdfunding also assumed they were contributing to the long term hosting costs of npm and the success of the platform itself.

I don't believe they had much say in the change. They are still using the money to do what they said they'd do in their campaign, and many people are setting up their registry as their default. As far as I know they just got caught in a situation that was less than ideal (while also getting rid of some financial burden). I think they deserve an applause for running it at high cost to their business for free for years rather than be villainized because they got caught in a situation that they weren't in control of. If you donated, or are worried about what Npm, Inc. is doing (hint: so silly to feel this way) you should set your default registry to theirs (it's already set as your failover, btw).

The cynicism in this thread is so bizarre to me. No one is being evil. There's no secret foul play. Everyone go write modules and share them and be happy.

Re: Npm Raises $2.6M Seed Round

#76

Post by PyDart »

seldo wrote: post #24
mmaster5 wrote: post #16

Per his blog, Fast.ly is now hosting the npm registry, so the money is not going for hosting. It's to build some kind of sellout business. Back in July he must've seen this coming because he switched the npm license from MIT to the more restrictive Artistic 2.0: https://github.com/npm/npm/commit/c32391b1efd70a861cebc77e0c... He's already taken away the download numbers on npmjs.org, so maybe he intends to sell the "a…

It's not accurate to say that Fastly is hosting the registry; Fastly are providing CDN services to our registry -- a globally distributed cache -- for which we're very grateful. As of five days ago ( http://blog.npmjs.org/post/75707294465/new-npm-registry-arch... ) we are hosting the registry ourselves; it was previously hosted by Nodejitsu (who still operate a downstream mirror). As for the download counts, per Twit…

(Pssst... hey kid... c'mere a minute. Tell ya somethin'. Ya wanna sell stuff? Then stfu about yer junk. Cuz... seriously? NO body wants to hear that shit. Know whutta mean? Jus' sayin'...) And, I hate to tell ya this, but... ... that guy's title... if it is, as you say, "a joke"... it sure ain't the biggest one. But, ya don't have to take MY word for it. Life is a great educator. Bit heavy-handed at times, but... you guys'll find that out. Have at it, kid. Take yer best shot. Hope ya got a 'Plan B'.

Re: Npm Raises $2.6M Seed Round

#77

Post by grncdr »

nawitus wrote: post #45
etler wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Makes sense. One obvious power feature, that not only doesn't affect normal users, and would be well worth the money, is a locked down priority server. With npm being an open registry, any author can overwrite any release at any time. I don't want that possibility to happen on production, so if they provided a server with the versions you are using frozen from the general community, I would be interested in that.

Well, you can already specify a particular version that you want to use (though I'm not sure if you can verify that using hashes).

You cannot (verify using hashes that is). On the other hand, you can use git URLs with commit hashes, which works pretty well.

Re: Npm Raises $2.6M Seed Round

#78

Post by knappador »

Going to be watching Nginx and other deals very closely as far as their long-term health.

I could take a giggly pot-shot at web development in general by proposing that they want to monetize node.js via a browser-base service to live one's entire developer life, but I'm in serious agreement with others' concerns that there's something ultimately harmful in VC money getting confused, panicky, and deciding to GSM (Google Mobile Services) the licensing of new code or come up with some ridiculous contributor licensing agreement like what I'm hearing about Ubuntu.

Take heed, FOSS communities don't negotiate except on an endless table that runs from one side of the universe to the other.

Re: Npm Raises $2.6M Seed Round

#79

Post by IsaacSchlueter »

slexaxton wrote: post #75
stormbrew wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does this actually make it any better, though? I mean presumably the people who took part in the crowdfunding also assumed they were contributing to the long term hosting costs of npm and the success of the platform itself.

I don't believe they had much say in the change. They are still using the money to do what they said they'd do in their campaign, and many people are setting up their registry as their default. As far as I know they just got caught in a situation that was less than ideal (while also getting rid of some financial burden). I think they deserve an applause for running it at high cost to their business for free for years…

> (it's already set as your failover, btw)

Say what?

The Nodejitsu replica is a downstream replica, not a failover. Very different. 100% of `registry.npmjs.org` traffic goes to npm, Inc infrastructure.

> The cynicism in this thread is so bizarre to me.

Welcome to Hacker News. I see it's your first time here. :)

> Everyone go write modules and share them and be happy

Couldn't agree more.

Re: Npm Raises $2.6M Seed Round

#80

Post by IsaacSchlueter »

slexaxton wrote: post #38
nbody wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quite true. Even though I didn't donate, I wonder why they went for crowdfunding while they were going raising VC funding. I would expect (partial) refunds.

This is a common confusion. The scalenpm crowdfunding was done by the good folks who ran the npm servers for free (mostly nodejitsu) up until the recent switchover to the new infrastructure with Npm, Inc. You can still use the nodejitsu registry for free if you'd like[1]. They arent likely to need as much scaling anymore, but there's still a big cost to running those servers. I don't think there was any foul play whe…

> as I'm fairly sure they were not aware of the intent for Npm, Inc to take over default hosting.

I did tell Charlie in November about my intent to take over the registry in Q1 of 2014, if it proved economically feasible. The raise helped accomplish that, for sure, but so did a massive restructuring that means it requires much less resources.

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