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No More Free Work from Marak: Pay Me or Fork This

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Re: No More Free Work from Marak: Pay Me or Fork This

#531

Post by Macha »

6gvONxR4sf7o wrote: post #514
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #485

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel for him being in his tough spot, but let's be clear on what faker.js is. I suspect many companies (like mine) use it to create "decent"-looking data for tests. But we could trivially do without it, and basically just used it because it was there. I contrast this with some other open source projects we use that we specifically contribute to (using GitHub donations) because they are central libraries to our code…

How often have you implemented a trivial feature and, after adding tests, debugging, doing code review, etc, you find it’s taken a nontrivial amount of time. And it’ll likely take maintenance too as you learn what you need (easier when you’ve seen it done already). Most of these trivial things probably take nontrivial time, and if you add all of them together for all the trivial projects you use, it’s probably saved…

Let's be clear, this is the difference between your test user being called Tom Smith with email tom@smith.com and Joseph Baker with email jbaker@bigcorp.com versus being called Foo Bar and Foo Bar2 with emails foo@example.com and foo2@example.com

Re: No More Free Work from Marak: Pay Me or Fork This

#532

Post by mattdeboard »

runawaybottle wrote: post #526
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #485

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel for him being in his tough spot, but let's be clear on what faker.js is. I suspect many companies (like mine) use it to create "decent"-looking data for tests. But we could trivially do without it, and basically just used it because it was there. I contrast this with some other open source projects we use that we specifically contribute to (using GitHub donations) because they are central libraries to our code…

That just goes to show you how rough the real world really is. Like, it’s free and a pretty good solution, but still replaceable lol. Tough crowd. Always charge, or get value somehow, because I can promise you people will feel entitled to whatever baseline you give them (in this case ‘free’). Everyone and everything is replaceable, oh cruel world, why you do us dirty like that?

That's not how tough the world is, it's how tough people choose to make it.

Re: No More Free Work from Marak: Pay Me or Fork This

#533

Post by donmcronald »

patrickk wrote: post #205
echelon wrote: post #21

Seriously. What's the point of open source if companies just steal it, build billion dollar industries on top, and then lock everything down? Apple is telling us we can't run our own software on their goddamned devices, yet they built their empire on open source. Look at Facebook, Google, Amazon. They've extracted all the blood they can and given us back scraps. AWS is repackaged software you pay more for. Yes, it's…

> Serge quickly discovered, to his surprise, that Goldman had a one-way relationship with open source. They took huge amounts of free software off the Web, but they did not return it after he had modified it, even when his modifications were very slight and of general rather than financial use. “Once I took some open-source components, repackaged them to come up with a component that was not even used at Goldman Sach…

That's a great read. I don't understand the prime number part though:

> 3599 = (3600 – 1) = (602 – 12) = (60 – 1) (60 + 1) = 59 times 61. Not a prime number.

Where does the (602 - 12) come from? Can someone explain that to me?

Also, use a leading space to keep things out of your bash history.

Re: No More Free Work from Marak: Pay Me or Fork This

#534

Post by chris_wot »

vmception wrote: post #510
ampdepolymerase wrote: post #467

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For all those people in this thread praising his work, now's the time to put your money where the mouth is. If you have used his work, push your companies to sponsor/donate. Asking irrelevant questions like whether he has a job does not help the situation. The community's response to events like this is what determines the future of open source. People like to complain about copyleft vs libre licenses. But if you hav…

Yeah but it is also hilarious when the contributors of free open source software rage quit when they realize others can use their work for free while the contributors forget to make money. Software developers, man! For a bi-weekly hilarious rage quit, check out Andre Conje on twitter!

That’s horrible. If you produce something for free, and someone uses it to reduce effort and expenses, at least throw some money their way! Doesn’t even have to be much.

Re: No More Free Work from Marak: Pay Me or Fork This

#535

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

anon73044 wrote: post #522
woah wrote: post #498

Earlier quoted context omitted.

40 pounds of potassium nitrate?

Pretty common size from the big box and home & garden type stores. https://www.lowes.com/pd/Sta-Green-43-lb-15-000-sq-ft-32-0-1... I'd be suspicions if he had 10-20 bags and didn't run a landscaping company or multiple acres or grass to maintain.

For an apartment in NYC??

Re: No More Free Work from Marak: Pay Me or Fork This

#536

Post by cmiles74 »

vmception wrote: post #510
ampdepolymerase wrote: post #467

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For all those people in this thread praising his work, now's the time to put your money where the mouth is. If you have used his work, push your companies to sponsor/donate. Asking irrelevant questions like whether he has a job does not help the situation. The community's response to events like this is what determines the future of open source. People like to complain about copyleft vs libre licenses. But if you hav…

Yeah but it is also hilarious when the contributors of free open source software rage quit when they realize others can use their work for free while the contributors forget to make money. Software developers, man! For a bi-weekly hilarious rage quit, check out Andre Conje on twitter!

I'm not sure that's the case here. It sounds like their apartment caught fire and now they are homeless. In my opinion, this sounds more like a desperation move than anger; this developer really needs money ASAP in order to keep a roof over their head.

Re: No More Free Work from Marak: Pay Me or Fork This

#537

Post by joshuaissac »

jml7c5 wrote: post #267
lollmao wrote: post #189

Unrelated, but why do people prefer to assume gender over just using gender-neutral pronouns? Not a native English speaker but I've seen this a lot, especially on HN even when there's no indication of subject's gender whatsoever. Or is it just weird to use they/them? Thanks

It's a weird problem with the language. Despite many attempts, with proposals like "xe" and "thon"[0], English never picked up a good gender-neutral singular third-person pronoun. [Yeesh, that's a mouthful of adjectives.] As recently as 15 years ago, using "they" to refer to a single individual was derided by many as grammatically incorrect. It was common in colloquial speech, but frowned upon in writing, mostly beca…

> As recently as 15 years ago, using "they" to refer to a single individual was derided by many as grammatically incorrect.

> The recent acceptance comes down to two factors

Here is a couplet from Shakespeare's "A Comedy of Errors" (1623):

> There's not a man I meet but doth salute me

> As if I were their well-acquainted friend

And the King James Version (1611) of the Bible has this for Deuteronomy 17:5:

> Then shalt thou bring forth that man or that woman, which have committed that wicked thing, unto thy gates, even that man or that woman, and shalt stone them with stones, till they die.

And these are not fringe publications, but some of the most widely-distributed texts in the English language. That makes singular "they" even older than singular "you"! I find it hard to understand the justification for opposing singular "they" even from a prescriptive perspective.

Re: No More Free Work from Marak: Pay Me or Fork This

#538

Post by ineedasername »

wjnc wrote: post #169
arthurcolle wrote: post #102

On Twitter, he claims that he was recently made homeless due to an apartment fire, and asks the community to send funds to help him avoid homelessness, which seems reasonable enough. He later goes on to describe "fake news written by the NY Post." I searched for this, and found an article that might be the article he describes (timing fits) [0] Pretty crazy story, all in all! He seems to be in some pretty dire strait…

If the police would ransack my family home after a fire you could probably write the same article. Charred RPi's and lots of computer parts, enough wiring for a new house, lots of chemicals (cleaners, fertilizers, other chemical agents with regular gardening use cases), ultimate survival guide and related parts ("This guy was prepping for something!"). The naming of suspects is just adding insult to injury. If he's i…

I think it's reasonable for police & even FBI to investigate after a fire in a home with lots of chemicals, including 40lbs of potassium nitrate, after also finding bomb-making information. However it does seem like they made a rush to judgment in arresting him rather than simply letting the hospital hold him until medically cleared, after which the police could hold him for 48 hours without charging, all while they investigate things more thoroughly like any writing/internet posts etc that could indicate any actual intent to use the stuff, rather than simply a (very dangerous) lack of care in how he conducts his hobbies.

Re: No More Free Work from Marak: Pay Me or Fork This

#539

Post by jonrimmer »

ampdepolymerase wrote: post #467
arthurcolle wrote: post #102

On Twitter, he claims that he was recently made homeless due to an apartment fire, and asks the community to send funds to help him avoid homelessness, which seems reasonable enough. He later goes on to describe "fake news written by the NY Post." I searched for this, and found an article that might be the article he describes (timing fits) [0] Pretty crazy story, all in all! He seems to be in some pretty dire strait…

For all those people in this thread praising his work, now's the time to put your money where the mouth is. If you have used his work, push your companies to sponsor/donate. Asking irrelevant questions like whether he has a job does not help the situation. The community's response to events like this is what determines the future of open source. People like to complain about copyleft vs libre licenses. But if you hav…

I use his work, but for me the situation is more complicated my prior experiences with the author.

He's been making similar complaints about his lack of renumeration for quite a while. In an older GitHub where he requested contributions, I pointed out that he had barely worked on the project for many months (at that time), and not published a new version to npm in years[1], despite making a $600 withdrawal from his Open Collective fund in June 2018 with the explicit purpose of releasing v5[2].

In the thread, I suggested that I and others might be willing to contribute, but I wanted more certainty on what exactly my contribution would be paying for. As I saw it, at that point he had a number of regular donors who were essentially paying him to do nothing.

He responded very angrily, saying nobody had any right to question his actions or to expect anything from him, even if they were paying him. He then deleted my comment entirely and banned me from commenting further. This interaction didn't exactly leave me with a strong desire to contribute. I think he's a rather volatile individual and the community would indeed be better off forking this project than indulging his sense of grievance.

[1] https://www.npmjs.com/package/faker.js [2] https://opencollective.com/fakerjs/expenses/3972

Re: No More Free Work from Marak: Pay Me or Fork This

#540

Post by donmcronald »

bovermyer wrote: post #408
puranjay wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The internet is now positively a nasty place. Everyone is optimizing for "engagement" which essentially equates to "controversial content". You can't find any genuine advice because Google has been gamed to the point where top 50 pages for any query are affiliate pages. Forums and the communities they fostered are dead. Their replacement, Reddit, has a structure that favors the hive mind. There are ads everywhere and…

No, the mainstream internet is the nasty place. The "old" Internet is still out there, at places like https://tilde.town .

I would like the spirit of the old internet with modern graphics. I don't understand why sites like that need to look like they're from the 90s.
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