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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)

#71
post #56
post #45

Here's simple solution: create a product and sell it for money. Seriously. Stop giving stuff away for free. EDIT: let me elaborate. Writing open source is not a business strategy. At best, it's a gimmick, or outsourcing infrastructure maintenance to the public. What you should do is the following: 1) Project authority. This is easy. You are the creator and maintainer of a critical piece of infrastructure. You are THE…

That’s simple, but it’s not a solution. Can you imagine writing software in a world without open source (that is also free as in beer)? I can’t.

I realize my original comment was very short. I wrote it while on the train. I've now elaborated and hopefully it's more useful now.

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

#72
post #67

From this article, Denis Pushkarev seems to be a remarkably principled developer in a horrible situation, and I admire his commitment to this project. Setting that aside, though, is anyone else alarmed that such a widely used project has exactly one maintainer who is able to push arbitrary changes without review? Especially one already in legal trouble and significant debt, unable to travel, for a project embedded in…

Your first paragraph reminded me of this article: https://david-gilbertson.medium.com/im-harvesting-credit-car... Imagine this scenario taking place with this package if someone got ahold of his NPM account.

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

#74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Pretty easy to say when you’re not the guy stressing out about paying bills while six-figure earners whose jobs are made significantly easier because of you trash you. I generally agree with the idea that nobody owes anyone else anything, but in this case, I think he should’ve been let it all burn to the ground — maybe then the ingrates would be able to understand how critical his library is.

[deleted]

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

#75

Please, if you are capable of doing development at this level, take the high-paying job, save for a decade, and get FI. Then you can work on OSS 120 hours a week if you like.

What is FI?

Financial independence.

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

#76
post #67

From this article, Denis Pushkarev seems to be a remarkably principled developer in a horrible situation, and I admire his commitment to this project. Setting that aside, though, is anyone else alarmed that such a widely used project has exactly one maintainer who is able to push arbitrary changes without review? Especially one already in legal trouble and significant debt, unable to travel, for a project embedded in…

Well. There is little doubt that he would be a good fit for at least a normal Engineer position in any of these companies. If they didn't hire him yet your guess as of why is as good as mine.

Edit: This was not meant to be read in a negative kind of way. I'd try to hire him if I had an open position to fit.

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

#77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Pretty easy to say when you’re not the guy stressing out about paying bills while six-figure earners whose jobs are made significantly easier because of you trash you. I generally agree with the idea that nobody owes anyone else anything, but in this case, I think he should’ve been let it all burn to the ground — maybe then the ingrates would be able to understand how critical his library is.

Babel has four paid developers, an almost $200k/year budget and hundreds of contributors. I'm sure that's enough to maintain the polyfills, if someone else wasn't already doing it for free - not to throw shade on them, but that's reality (not one I particularly like).

I do agree with that second statement. It is unfortunate that he got into this situation, but there is absolutely no reason to continue if it's not working out. He has the choice to go make six figures too, and doesn't owe anyone maintaining this library either.

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

#78
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.

Nobody actually follows the philosophy of "you take, and give as you can"

As the article mentions, nobody else contributed to corejs in a meaningful way. Everyone takes, but nobody gives. This is called tragedy of the commons, and it is a well-known problem in economics

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

#80
He has made multiple posts like this and it always reeks of entitlement and disdain for his user base. Charge money if you want money. Don't give something for free and then complain.

The real reason he doesn't charge is nobody would pay or someone would immediately fork the project and do it for free.

The point of large open source projects like this is to parlay it into career opportunities, not expect every installer to give you a dollar.

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