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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

#621

Post by awb »

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…

I think the point is that generating pretty fake data as opposed to bland fake data is a "nice to have" rather than a "must have" for 98% of companies. And by the time you get up to AirBnb and FB, etc., they have their own internal testing data and standards based on years of real-world false negatives and false positives.

It's really a content library, which is useful, but it's not in the mission-critical category where developers can get a rubber stamp budget approval from their boss. It's a great project to get your name out there as an open source developer, rather than a viable business model IMO.

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

#622

Post by ghaff »

pietrovismara wrote: post #604
jiofih wrote: post #579

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree wholeheartedly with that. I thought you were proposing a form of hybrid paid-OSS as many seem to want now. If you want to make a living, make it a business (yes, someone will have to deal with the business stuff).

And that's true, but then we circle back to the OP (original problem), if you can't make a living out of OSS you're generally very limited in how much you can achieve, which then stiffles innovation in all other sectors that depend on OSS. So the question stands, how do we allow OSS maintainers to contribute without forcing them to find ways to monetize their project, which would be against the very nature of OSS? An…

>how do we allow OSS maintainers to contribute without forcing them to find ways to monetize their project

The most common way--which is pretty widespread--is to work for a company that is monetizing the project or otherwise depends on it as they're often interested in hiring someone with particular familiarity with the code base.

>which would be against the very nature of OSS

The very nature of OSS is not against monetizing.

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

#623

Post by Spivak »

treis wrote: post #603
phendrenad2 wrote: post #516

Problem: You want to make money for all the work you do your open-source project. But no one pays for it. Reason: Developers choose your project, and developers are at the bottom of the food chain. They have no authority to spend money, usually, or they get pushback and delays if they do. Solution: Band together with the authors of related projects and create a new closed-source product, taking bits of your various c…

>For instance, what if Faker.js and other similar libraries banded together into a corporation, and sold a multi-language mocking/stubbing/faking toolset? Nobody would use them. Ultimately they would lose out to someone like Thoughtbot that puts out open source tools as a loss leader to drive consulting business.

That only works if Thoughbot's open source tools are good enough. People seem very happy to pay for JetBrain's suite of tools. Postman's collaborative offering makes good money. Sublime is still doing well.

There are people still selling standalone pieces of software to developers and doing okay. It's hard to compete with huge companies with a build-over-buy culture but that's just their nature. It's way cheaper to just built it themselves and have control of the project than to pay the licensing fees.

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

#624

Post by beervirus »

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…

Yes, it is a good look to donate money so this guy can make more bombs.

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

#625

Post by rodgerd »

chris_wot wrote: post #530
marcinzm wrote: post #513

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then what is the better solution? Saying it's wrong without giving alternatives isn't a very useful comment imho. edit: And the solution needs to apply to the US, with all it's brokenness, not some other country with different social structures.

The media doesn’t do this is the U.K. or Australia. We have much stronger libel laws. Nobody has been “disappeared” by the police, either.

> Nobody has been “disappeared” by the police, either.

Your faith in the British police would be charming if it wasn't the thing that lead to things like the Guildford 4.

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

#626

Post by curryst »

baobabKoodaa wrote: post #508
tastroder wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah well, just saw the house fire tweet and sent him a few bucks. Guess I'm on one more list now. There seem to be a few articles that are at least not half filled with the ramblings of an elderly neighbour: https://www.qgazette.com/articles/more-charges-possible-for-... https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8737513/NYPD-discov... https://abc7ny.com/suspicious-package-queens-astoria-fire/64... Emotional distress se…

I agree it's terrible that the papers named him so early, and I do think we should give him the benefit of the doubt, but given the information out there right now, there is a reasonable chance he actually was making a bomb. It seems to me like people are willing to jump to the opposite conclusion simply because he's "one of us". Let the investigation play its course.

> It seems to me like people are willing to jump to the opposite conclusion simply because he's "one of us".

Because many of us have our own collection of weird oddities. I literally have cannon fuse sitting on the shelf behind me, that I got to make my own smoke bombs/devices (just sugar and potassium nitrate, nothing insane or dangerous). I would take a hard look at the worst thing someone could accuse you of building using the materials you have in your house. If you have any metal piping sitting around, and a nail or screw, that could be turned into a primitive gun. If you have metal piping and anything that burns very quickly like gunpowder, that's a pipe bomb (or pressure cooker). If you have a propane grill and a gun (or anything that could be used as a detonator), that propane tank could cause some serious damage.

I'll grant you, ammonium nitrate isn't a terribly common substance to have around an apartment. I still don't think it's very compelling evidence that he was building a bomb, and weaker evidence that if he was building a bomb, it was to hurt people. Maybe he was just trying to make his own fireworks. He shouldn't be doing that in an apartment, cuz risk of accidental explosions, but it seems hasty to start painting him as a domestic terrorist.

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

#627

Post by tomnipotent »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #525
offbyone wrote: post #490

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's going to be true to some extent of every library your company uses, but for every library someone writes and offers as FOSS, you don't have to spend the cycles designing, developing, and maintaining your own, nor training new hires on using it. You're fundamentally misunderstanding the value of having good quality tools developed by someone else. And I'm not even going to _start_ on what I think of your attitu…

You're completely mischaracterizing my post. My point is that if faker were anything slightly above free, we really wouldn't have used it, and our code quality wouldn't suffer from not having it. It was more of a "ooh, that's kinda nice" thing when we used it. > And I'm not even going to _start_ on what I think of your attitude towards test tooling vs "central libraries" other than to note that if you don't consider…

> and our code quality wouldn't suffer from not having it

Your code quality is irrelevant. What matters is did it save you time, and what is that time worth to you and your business.

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

#628

Post by a1369209993 »

derefr wrote: post #569
jonrimmer wrote: post #539

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 O…

You might see that as “volatile”, but I think I can see what he’s getting at. A charitable reading of his whole stance: • We can enter into a formal contract where I actually do owe you work-on-this-project in exchange for pay; • but without such a contract, donations to me are just that — donations — and don’t influence my work; • but this is an open-source project, so you’re free to put whatever work you like into…

To be fair, it would be nice if he explicitly expressed such a stance rather than tacitly implying it, but otherwise that sounds about right.

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

#629

Post by BoorishBears »

unreal37 wrote: post #580
BoorishBears wrote: post #543

Earlier quoted context omitted.

... what? You realize the concept of innocent until proven guilty is not a unique concept to HN readers right? That presumption of innocence is not " act like maybe he was making bombs until proven guilty"? It sounds like you've let the media erode your understanding of a very basic human right, but do not try and cast it on others as some sort of tribalism. He is innocent until proven guilty . Not "reasonable chance…

Obligatory Reddit-type response: "Sir, this is a Wendy's drive-thru. Not a court of law." HN response: Of course, everyone is free to say what they wish. First amendment. Freedom of speech. Freedom of thought. Freedom is the basic human right. Wikipedia says, The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, article 11, states: "Everyone charged with a penal offence has the right to be presumed innocent until proved guilty…

Precious little about your comment makes sense from that first sentence to the rest of it.

> Of course, everyone is free to say what they wish. First amendment. Freedom of speech. Freedom of thought. Freedom is the basic human right.

I'm not even going to bother falling into the tangential tarpit of acting like someone is a bomb maker without them having gone to trial is a "1st amendment right". After all, if your best defense of a statement is "I'm legally allowed to say it", it's probably not worth much consideration.

> Notice that this covers the rights of someone "who has been charged with an offence" in "a public trial".

No it doesn't. It covers the rights of a person. Period. That's literally the point of a universal declaration of human rights

You're trying to play word sashimi to make a point that isn't made. The definition of guilt is specific to a public trial exactly because a "trial" of public opinions is so easy to manipulate.

Sure it can't force the general public to be decent people and understand that people should be presumed innocent until proven guilty... but it's also not endorsing the public not do so. It's not limiting presumption of innocence to trials.

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

#630

Post by nicbou »

Karupan wrote: post #17

Right move IMO. The consulting firm a friend works for uses faker.js for almost all their projects. The consultants get paid $1500 a day and they haven’t even thought of donating as it “free and open source”. I also hope the license is more restricted for commercial use.

To be fair, you get paid $1500 a day regardless. If you write the thing yourself, you'll get paid $1500 a day for a bit longer.
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