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I don't use Standard, but I am a (mostly) frontend developer, and I agree with your take on things. It's a shame, because feross is a very productive open sourc

I don't use Standard, but I am a (mostly) frontend developer, and I agree with your take on things. It's a shame, because feross is a very productive open source developer, but it does look like this is a ill-conceived attempt at monetization of his most popular project that has the largest audience. And hey, I'm all for monetization of open source projects: I have no problem with ads on READMEs, etc. But no, no ads in my terminal when I'm working. Not normal and not OK.

benologist 7y ago
I think the shame is he has written some software I find valuable, and some tens of thousands others, but we refuse to value the author's ongoing commitment too. Software that doesn't require a major ongoing effort can still be in dire need of support, like OpenSSL. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenSSL#Heartbleed https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenSSL#Heartbleed OpenSSL falling over was a wakeup call that we continue to ignore even as NPM, Ruby and other packages are converted to malware because there's nothing in it for the original developer except more work.
- goatinaboat 7y ago
  NPM and RubyGems are going to be steamrollered in short order by Github repos, so there is an opportunity to start afresh.
  - wolfd 7y ago
    What do you mean? Is there some announcement/feature I was unaware of?
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
    - JD557 7y ago
      goatinaboat was probably talking about this: https://github.com/features/package-registry https://github.com/features/package-registry
kemitchell 7y ago
The standard experience of maintainers trying to support their work is that everyone else makes a public point of standing in support of maintainer funding as a general matter, but strongly opposes whatever specific approach the maintainer actually happens to be trying. To be frank, I'm not a fan of ad-based models. But it's the example here, and we see the same pattern. Ads in general? Sure. Ads where people will see them, as via popups in Atom or messages to stdout? For shame. This is not Feross' first attempt to fund his open work. Past approaches haven't failed because Feross wasn't churning out valuable software. He's been doing that the whole time. The "well conceived" approaches that cost consuming developers literally nothing---no money, no time, no attention---don't repeatably solve funding problems for producing developers.
- buu700 7y ago
  I don't use standard, but FWIW I like this approach. npm install can output thousands of ads for all I care if it means software I depend on is better maintained. At that point I'd probably never see most of the ads, but, eh, I do know what LogRocket is now, so this ad at least did its job. Edit: There are some good arguments here. I'm on the fence. In most cases I don't look at npm output, in which case the ads would be useless, and when I do need to actually look at npm output they'd be in the way. I can also get behind considering the terminal an "ad-free zone".
- jnbiche 7y ago
  > The standard experience of maintainers trying to support their work is that everyone else makes a public point of standing in support of maintainer funding as a general matter, but strongly opposes whatever specific approach the maintainer actually happens to be trying. If you're suggesting that I'm guilty of that behavior, I should mention that I've never opposed developer using ads on their software's website, or on the software's README. In fact, I've done so myself. I've also been a big supporter of GoFundMe, Patreon,-and like websites for open source developers. Believe me, if there were a better way for open source software to be funded, I'd probably spend more time on my open source projects. But not by spamming ads on stdout.
  - 7y ago
jnbiche 7y ago
Having read through a lot of the threads that this initiative by Feross has touched off, I've somewhat revised by opinion: I still think the terminal ads are a very bad move, but I appreciate the fact that we're all talking about this now. I'm not entitled to compensation for any open source work, but it would be nice if I could receive some compensation in order to do more maintenance/improvements and/or revive abandoned projects. So it's good we're talking about this.

benologist 7y ago

I think the shame is he has written some software I find valuable, and some tens of thousands others, but we refuse to value the author's ongoing commitment too. Software that doesn't require a major ongoing effort can still be in dire need of support, like OpenSSL. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenSSL#Heartbleed https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenSSL#Heartbleed OpenSSL falling over was a wakeup call that we continue to ignore even as NPM, Ruby and other packages are converted to malware because there's nothing in it for the original developer except more work.

goatinaboat 7y ago
NPM and RubyGems are going to be steamrollered in short order by Github repos, so there is an opportunity to start afresh.
- wolfd 7y ago
  What do you mean? Is there some announcement/feature I was unaware of?
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - JD557 7y ago
    goatinaboat was probably talking about this: https://github.com/features/package-registry https://github.com/features/package-registry

kemitchell 7y ago

The standard experience of maintainers trying to support their work is that everyone else makes a public point of standing in support of maintainer funding as a general matter, but strongly opposes whatever specific approach the maintainer actually happens to be trying. To be frank, I'm not a fan of ad-based models. But it's the example here, and we see the same pattern. Ads in general? Sure. Ads where people will see them, as via popups in Atom or messages to stdout? For shame. This is not Feross' first attempt to fund his open work. Past approaches haven't failed because Feross wasn't churning out valuable software. He's been doing that the whole time. The "well conceived" approaches that cost consuming developers literally nothing---no money, no time, no attention---don't repeatably solve funding problems for producing developers.

buu700 7y ago
I don't use standard, but FWIW I like this approach. npm install can output thousands of ads for all I care if it means software I depend on is better maintained. At that point I'd probably never see most of the ads, but, eh, I do know what LogRocket is now, so this ad at least did its job. Edit: There are some good arguments here. I'm on the fence. In most cases I don't look at npm output, in which case the ads would be useless, and when I do need to actually look at npm output they'd be in the way. I can also get behind considering the terminal an "ad-free zone".
jnbiche 7y ago
> The standard experience of maintainers trying to support their work is that everyone else makes a public point of standing in support of maintainer funding as a general matter, but strongly opposes whatever specific approach the maintainer actually happens to be trying. If you're suggesting that I'm guilty of that behavior, I should mention that I've never opposed developer using ads on their software's website, or on the software's README. In fact, I've done so myself. I've also been a big supporter of GoFundMe, Patreon,-and like websites for open source developers. Believe me, if there were a better way for open source software to be funded, I'd probably spend more time on my open source projects. But not by spamming ads on stdout.
- 7y ago

jnbiche 7y ago

Having read through a lot of the threads that this initiative by Feross has touched off, I've somewhat revised by opinion: I still think the terminal ads are a very bad move, but I appreciate the fact that we're all talking about this now. I'm not entitled to compensation for any open source work, but it would be nice if I could receive some compensation in order to do more maintenance/improvements and/or revive abandoned projects. So it's good we're talking about this.