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So what’s next (personal news from developer of popular CoreJS polyfill)

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Re: So what’s next (personal news from developer of popular CoreJS polyfill)

#321

In my unasked-for opinion, he should absolutely give up on this project, and take a salaried job that'll let him support his family and not have to deal with the entitlement issues and lack of perspective the community evidently has. If half of what's in this post is true, he's shown admirable restraint: I'd have burned it all down the first time someone got pissy about a free thing I gave them.

Yes. But I think it also shows a common misunderstanding of "open source" (and even "free software"). What he did was incredibly valuable to a huge number of successful people and corporations. But no one owes him anything. That's the point of open source. If they did owe him something, they wouldn't have used it. They used it because it was great, it was established/known, it was available with no strings attached w…

> But no one owes him anything.

He's the maintainer of a major software library. Everyone who depends on his work does owe him gratitude and respect. They'd have to pay me big bucks to care enough to do what he did, so I respect him for doing it.

Re: So what’s next (personal news from developer of popular CoreJS polyfill)

#322
post #16

It's definitely time for him to let this project go, working on it is a literally thankless task and the level of entitlement shown towards his work has been infuriating to watch. The outrage towards him daring to ask the community for help , something done in an act of desperation, is a real wake up call for open source maintainers - the community doesn't give a fuck about you, they want your code and they want it f…

> the community doesn't give a fuck about you, they want your code and they want it free

This is why I'm skeptical about non-free software licenses. Maybe we should all be applying AGPLv3 to our free software code instead of stuff like MIT or BSD. That way anyone who just wants to exploit people's work at their jobs to make a killing while simultaneously hating them for it will have to look elsewhere.

This old post's made a huge impression on me:

https://web.archive.org/web/20091210171517/https://zedshaw.c...

> “Hey your software is awesome! Can I get it for free so I can use it at work and make money or please my boss? That’d rock! (for me).”

> I want people to appreciate the work I’ve done and the value of what I’ve made.

> Not pass on by waving “sucker” as they drive their fancy cars.

Re: So what’s next (personal news from developer of popular CoreJS polyfill)

#323
post #121

In my unasked-for opinion, he should absolutely give up on this project, and take a salaried job that'll let him support his family and not have to deal with the entitlement issues and lack of perspective the community evidently has. If half of what's in this post is true, he's shown admirable restraint: I'd have burned it all down the first time someone got pissy about a free thing I gave them.

Maintainers like Denis shouldn't be asking for donations, they should be sponsored the same way Nike sponsors athletes. If you're a burnt out open source maintainer or know someone who is, I'd love to talk to you. My job is to help create awareness about the issue with companies that depend on your package. I reached out to Denis because we all know he deserves better. Appreciate any leads you could additionally shar…

Quick idea: make a post on HN every few months so people can post projects that need maintainers/sponsors.

Re: So what’s next (personal news from developer of popular CoreJS polyfill)

#324
post #198

Live by MIT license, starve by MIT license. This is not the type of FOSS ecosystem that Stallman wanted to achieve; it's the ecosystem that big business wants: people work for free and profits multiply and accumulate at the top. That is what MIT licensing fosters. If you want a different world, use a different license model. Unfortunately, the JS world is effectively built on freeloading, so any licensing restriction…

Completely agree. I think I'm going to start using the AGPLv3 for everything from now on. It's not like I'm making anything so critical as this core-js library but still.

This old post's made a huge impression on me but it never really sank in until today:

https://web.archive.org/web/20091210171517/https://zedshaw.c...

> “Hey your software is awesome! Can I get it for free so I can use it at work and make money or please my boss? That’d rock! (for me).”

> I want people to appreciate the work I’ve done and the value of what I’ve made.

> Not pass on by waving “sucker” as they drive their fancy cars.

Re: So what’s next (personal news from developer of popular CoreJS polyfill)

#325
post #16

It's definitely time for him to let this project go, working on it is a literally thankless task and the level of entitlement shown towards his work has been infuriating to watch. The outrage towards him daring to ask the community for help , something done in an act of desperation, is a real wake up call for open source maintainers - the community doesn't give a fuck about you, they want your code and they want it f…

> the community doesn't give a fuck about you, they want your code and they want it free That's a pretty polarizing mindset. The community wants to be a community - you take, and give as you can. Nobody owes anyone else anything.

Yeah, sure. Those top 1000 corporations were surely giving back at every opportunity.

Re: So what’s next (personal news from developer of popular CoreJS polyfill)

#326
What a story!

It's hard to make OSS sustainable without millions of $ and VCs trying to turn that OSS tech in a huge business. With OrientDB we got lucky, not it's the past... Now I'm experimenting with a different approach of redistributing GitHub Sponsorships to the developers that actively work to the project:

https://blog.arcadedb.com/welcome-to-arcadedb#whats-next

After almost 18 months it's still far from being sustainable. Pure OSS is one of the hardest field to make some money because of the average developer: they just take without giving anything back in terms of work (contributing) or money.

Re: So what’s next (personal news from developer of popular CoreJS polyfill)

#327
post #69

I do understand that not a lot of people here really understand the sheer direness of his situation. He stuck in Russia because of unsettled problems regarding his conviction. He almost certainly cannot immigrate into most of the countries because of said conviction - to have a work permit one have to provide a certificate of good conduct. He is cut off most options to receive money from abroad and several means to r…

> His son will soon feel a taste of state fascist indoctrination, it starts in kindergarten now in Russia.

While I certainly don't know any specifics about what things are like in Russia, I suspect this is not so different from most other countries in the world. Here in America, children are made to pledge their allegiance to the flag of the US every morning with a hand over their heart. This is before they have any concept of what the words "pledge" and "allegiance" even mean.

Re: So what’s next (personal news from developer of popular CoreJS polyfill)

#328
post #327
post #69

I do understand that not a lot of people here really understand the sheer direness of his situation. He stuck in Russia because of unsettled problems regarding his conviction. He almost certainly cannot immigrate into most of the countries because of said conviction - to have a work permit one have to provide a certificate of good conduct. He is cut off most options to receive money from abroad and several means to r…

> His son will soon feel a taste of state fascist indoctrination, it starts in kindergarten now in Russia. While I certainly don't know any specifics about what things are like in Russia, I suspect this is not so different from most other countries in the world. Here in America, children are made to pledge their allegiance to the flag of the US every morning with a hand over their heart. This is before they have any…

Can you remind me when was the last time US waged a conquest war under the pretext that neighbor state has no sovereignty right because people there are not a real nation? And to strengthen that point killed tens of thousands of civilians?

Re: So what’s next (personal news from developer of popular CoreJS polyfill)

#329
post #186
post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Edit: I see you work for thanks.dev, which doesn't seem like it would cover the projects I mention below. I leave my original comment in case anyone else is interested in sponsoring the things I mention. I'd like to find sponsors for a few non-web-related projects. In particular the Linux USB Gadgets userspace stack (libusbgx/gt/gadgetd/etc), a library for the Microsoft PST email format (libpst) and a tool for runnin…

Thanks Paul, yes I do work for thanks.dev & non-web-projects are on our roadmap. Let me know if you’d like to be a early pilot user when we’re ready for testing…

I don't use CSS/JS capable browsers, so this doesn't seem feasible unless you switch your tech stacks.

Re: So what’s next (personal news from developer of popular CoreJS polyfill)

#330

Irritates me that some FAANG isn't just paying this, but they are not. He wants $80 an hour, so I've set up a monthly contribution for that much. If you can afford it, I'd strongly encourage you to do the same.

Wow! Very decent gesture from you. Nice to see.
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