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NPM Bans Terminal Ads

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Re: NPM Bans Terminal Ads

#191

Post by SquishyPanda23 »

jasode wrote: post #50
cj wrote: post #11

While I don't particularly like the idea of stuffing ads into npm logs, I don't have the same visceral negative reaction that many people have in these HN threads on this topic. The overwhelming majority of the people complaining about this are well-paid tech workers writing code for well-funded companies that profit off of open source code without providing any reciprocal value to the open source projects in return.…

>, why is it so alarming to think that these maintainers might think of a clever idea like this to make a couple thousand bucks? [...] But instead of attacking the guy for trying, I really wish the discussion were focussed on how the community of open-source consumers can contribute back to the open source ecosystem You're (possibly unintentionally) distorting/diverting the issue. Nobody is criticizing open source ma…

Open source project funding is a major open problem, which is something many people agree on. It can't sustain if we don't solve that.

What I don't see is the fairness argument. Developers have legal means to restrict commercial use of their software. The community has for decades had a conversation about licensing and none of this is new territory.

These developers chose to volunteer their time to corporations. If they don't like that choice they should change their behavior not make demands of others.

Otherwise it's just the high tech equivalent of the common street scam where somebody hands you an object and then demands a donation if you take it.

Re: NPM Bans Terminal Ads

#192

Post by [deleted] »

duxup wrote: post #190
simplecomplex wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re bothered by seeing a message from the author of software you’re using for free (probably to make yourself money!). And you don’t see how that’s self-centered and entitled.

There's nothing about free software that I'm aware of that means you should or shouldn't like a message. We discuss our preferences for all sorts of things in software (free or otherwise) HN, all over the internet It's free software... pretty sure you're "entitled" to it, and can have opinions about it. Side note I don't know what people mean by "entitled" anymore, it's like a placeholder for an empty sentiment these…

[deleted]

Re: NPM Bans Terminal Ads

#193

Post by marcosdumay »

Hamuko wrote: post #67
cj wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with the sentiment that shady things shouldn't be excused because "I'm an open source developer and I need money". You have a point there. Although: > decides to embed advertising such as "Try LINODE for 30 days!" in "README.md" Are you trying to say that this is also not acceptable? Our company sponsors a few open source npm projects, and all of the projects we sponsor have our logo in the README.md - is tha…

There is a difference between a company logo and "Try Company PRODUCT for 30 days!" I imagine the latter comes with a link, perhaps even a tracking one, to sign up for the service.

> perhaps even a tracking one

Tracking the campaign? Yes, probably. But tracking you? How do you expect that to work?

Making ads contextual to the place they are and tracking the campaigns to discover what works and what doesn't is how it should be done.

Re: NPM Bans Terminal Ads

#194

Post by [deleted] »

wvenable wrote: post #66
cj wrote: post #11

While I don't particularly like the idea of stuffing ads into npm logs, I don't have the same visceral negative reaction that many people have in these HN threads on this topic. The overwhelming majority of the people complaining about this are well-paid tech workers writing code for well-funded companies that profit off of open source code without providing any reciprocal value to the open source projects in return.…

If you are a software developer and you want to make money, sell your software. If you want give away your software for free, do that. Giving away software for free and then using adware to make up the difference is something else entirely. If someone wants to make money with developing software, they have many many ways of doing that. Framing this as poor starving software developers getting the shaft by for-profit…

[deleted]

Re: NPM Bans Terminal Ads

#195

Post by [deleted] »

_frkl wrote: post #188

Hm, difficult topic, I can see both sides. I'd be interested what would happen if npm decided to add a 'contains-ads' metadata field which package authors can set to true if they want to display adds. By default, those packages would not be listed when searched, and would not be be installable, except the user sets an 'accept ad-packages' flag for that (or all) packages (opt-in), on the client side. I guess the main…

[deleted]

Re: NPM Bans Terminal Ads

#196

Post by [deleted] »

wvenable wrote: post #136
CJefferson wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not switch that around (honest question)? If you are a software developer and you want software without adverts, pay for it. If you want software for free, you accept whatever the author of that software chooses to do to pay their bills.

Software that has ads is no longer free (gratis). You're just paying for it with annoyance and intrusion instead of money. And I think the collective opinion here is that we'd rather go without that software than to pay for it that way. In other words, we won't accept those terms and we won't use that software.

[deleted]

Re: NPM Bans Terminal Ads

#197

Post by mikl »

It’s a slippery slope. The first packages with ads just printed a single line of text. Then others started adding more lines, more aggressive colors, and now you have npm ads painting a half a screenful of empty lines with their ad in the middle. Once can imagine an arms race of ever worse ads.

And considering that it’s not unusual to be installing hundreds of npm packages for a single project, the ads would soon render the logging output unusable, giving rise to an arms race between npm ads and npm ad-blockers.

So npm basically had to nip this in the bud, before it makes the ecosystem unusable through the tragedy of the commons.

Re: NPM Bans Terminal Ads

#199

Post by moron4hire »

SquishyPanda23 wrote: post #191
jasode wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>, why is it so alarming to think that these maintainers might think of a clever idea like this to make a couple thousand bucks? [...] But instead of attacking the guy for trying, I really wish the discussion were focussed on how the community of open-source consumers can contribute back to the open source ecosystem You're (possibly unintentionally) distorting/diverting the issue. Nobody is criticizing open source ma…

Open source project funding is a major open problem, which is something many people agree on. It can't sustain if we don't solve that. What I don't see is the fairness argument. Developers have legal means to restrict commercial use of their software. The community has for decades had a conversation about licensing and none of this is new territory. These developers chose to volunteer their time to corporations. If t…

Oh sure, but Industry has also browbeat people into believing the GPL is completely untenable.

I've yet to see an original monetization suggestion in these threads. People have tried it all. Companies and devs prefer to wait for a poor sap to make a free-as-in-beer version and then stiff them on tips.

Re: NPM Bans Terminal Ads

#200

Post by craigsmansion »

wvenable wrote: post #158
nothrabannosir wrote: post #101

I know this is a controversial opinion and I know it won’t directly solve the issue at hand, but it’s related and it addresses some of the concerns raised by many people in this thread: how do we get open source the funding it needs? Consider a world where the norm is not MIT/BSD but GPL dual licensed with MIT for a fee. This would give back control to maintainers of a library, and it would allow people without funds…

> how do we get open source the funding it needs? Has anyone considered that open source / free software is just fundamentally incompatible with capitalism? Society already has plenty of ways to fund projects -- we even created entire legal constructs, like copyright, to facilitate this very thing. The zero-cost ability to copy software and mutate it (if you have the source) is at the heart of the movement. As is the…

> Has anyone considered that open source / free software is just fundamentally incompatible with capitalism?

Legions, many of which have only recently become aware of Free Software or Open Source.

As far as Free Software is concerned, there is no problem with capitalism. It's only about guarding the software freedoms of the users of software.

"Free" as in "free market", not as in "free lunch".

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