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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 renume

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

jka 6y ago
It looks like the package may have duplicate entries on NPM; the more-regularly-released package is posted here: https://www.npmjs.com/package/faker https://www.npmjs.com/package/faker
derefr 6y ago
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 it, and keep/use/share the results (in your own space, that I don’t have to referee.) • I’ll just be over here, doing what I want, unless/until someone makes a contract with me to do what they want. (Which, of course, they’re not obligated to do; they could just as well hire someone else to fork and maintain the project, rather than hiring me. That’s their choice.) • So, in short, you’re not the boss of me; unless you’re literally my boss. (A patron is not a boss.)
- an_opabinia 6y ago
  This is more of a matter of, if some Internet rando has a comfy development job, it's easy to go and flame nonconformists like Marak on the Internet. Even if Marak was a jerk or a liar, he still deserves to be paid!
  - andi999 6y ago
    I do not think he 'deserves' to get paid. It is nice if he gets paid, but I dont even see a moral obligation (not speaking of legal). I mean the idea of gpl2 (at least from linus and my perspective) is nicely laid out here:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PaKIZ7gJlRU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PaKIZ7gJlRU Paraphrasing:'I give you my sourcecode and if you change it and give the software away, please give me the changes'. For MIT license (which Marak choose) (this is not in the video link), it is more like: 'please use this for whichever cause you like, I dont even expect software changes back'.
    - derefr 6y ago
      Everyone deserves to get paid (in the sense of moral desert; i.e. people "deserve" human rights.) You don't have a personal obligation to pay them, though. Solving that discrepancy isn't going to be done in an HN comment; it's the Great Work of capitalist statecraft.
      - andi999 6y ago
        I agree he deserves to get paid like everybody else, but not because of this work he did. Unfortunately not all societies do that, so uually the common route to get paid is to get (a) work (contract), somebody is willing to pay for.
        an_opabinia 6y ago
        I believe prison laborers deserve to be paid minimum wage, despite their convictions and despite their inability to negotiate. Additionally minimum wage should be raised to a living wage. You’re taking an overly reductionist view, incompatible with things like “equal pay for equal work.” He definitely deserves to get paid for his work, and it’s obviously a matter of by whom, and he’s fed up with giant corporations using his stuff despite being able to pay him, and he’s totally in the right even if he’s insert-some-undesirable-here.
thomasfedb 6y ago
> despite making a $600 withdrawal from his Open Collective fund in June 2018 with the explicit purpose of releasing v5[2]. I just want to point out how crazy it is that we expect people to releasing a whole major version for $600 Meanwhile in the commercial world, changing the colour of a button in your iOS app will cost you $1000s...
- erdos4d 6y ago
  Having been on both sides of that pay discrepancy, I have come to the conclusion that most of our economic theory about the nature of business and competition is bullshit. I now see corporations as social organizations which exist to keep educated people fed and controlled, everything else is secondary. The sums are big because the money has to get divvied up amongst everyone, even if the work involved is just changing a hex value by the lowest paid and probably most technically skilled person in the network.
  - icedchai 6y ago
    Yep, that money has to pay for not only the developer "doing the work", but all the overhead: the product managers, QA, release/deployment... then redo of work because someone used the wrong shade of blue.
- serverholic 6y ago
  Then he shouldn't take the money.
  - reaperducer 6y ago
    See also: "Let them eat cake."
throwaway92011 6y ago
He was co founder of Nodejitsu, the company who raised kickstarter funding for NPM, the same time NPM raised money from investors . There was a legal conflict about who owns NPM, they didnt refund or make a statement the money they raised for a project they don't own. That Kickstarter campaign was a scam and they got away with it.
reaperducer 6y ago
If you're using his work, pay him something. Everything else is just excuses.

jka 6y ago

It looks like the package may have duplicate entries on NPM; the more-regularly-released package is posted here: https://www.npmjs.com/package/faker https://www.npmjs.com/package/faker

derefr 6y ago

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 it, and keep/use/share the results (in your own space, that I don’t have to referee.) • I’ll just be over here, doing what I want, unless/until someone makes a contract with me to do what they want. (Which, of course, they’re not obligated to do; they could just as well hire someone else to fork and maintain the project, rather than hiring me. That’s their choice.) • So, in short, you’re not the boss of me; unless you’re literally my boss. (A patron is not a boss.)

an_opabinia 6y ago
This is more of a matter of, if some Internet rando has a comfy development job, it's easy to go and flame nonconformists like Marak on the Internet. Even if Marak was a jerk or a liar, he still deserves to be paid!
- andi999 6y ago
  I do not think he 'deserves' to get paid. It is nice if he gets paid, but I dont even see a moral obligation (not speaking of legal). I mean the idea of gpl2 (at least from linus and my perspective) is nicely laid out here:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PaKIZ7gJlRU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PaKIZ7gJlRU Paraphrasing:'I give you my sourcecode and if you change it and give the software away, please give me the changes'. For MIT license (which Marak choose) (this is not in the video link), it is more like: 'please use this for whichever cause you like, I dont even expect software changes back'.
  - derefr 6y ago
    Everyone deserves to get paid (in the sense of moral desert; i.e. people "deserve" human rights.) You don't have a personal obligation to pay them, though. Solving that discrepancy isn't going to be done in an HN comment; it's the Great Work of capitalist statecraft.
    - andi999 6y ago
      I agree he deserves to get paid like everybody else, but not because of this work he did. Unfortunately not all societies do that, so uually the common route to get paid is to get (a) work (contract), somebody is willing to pay for.
      - an_opabinia 6y ago
        I believe prison laborers deserve to be paid minimum wage, despite their convictions and despite their inability to negotiate. Additionally minimum wage should be raised to a living wage. You’re taking an overly reductionist view, incompatible with things like “equal pay for equal work.” He definitely deserves to get paid for his work, and it’s obviously a matter of by whom, and he’s fed up with giant corporations using his stuff despite being able to pay him, and he’s totally in the right even if he’s insert-some-undesirable-here.

thomasfedb 6y ago

> despite making a $600 withdrawal from his Open Collective fund in June 2018 with the explicit purpose of releasing v5[2]. I just want to point out how crazy it is that we expect people to releasing a whole major version for $600 Meanwhile in the commercial world, changing the colour of a button in your iOS app will cost you $1000s...

erdos4d 6y ago
Having been on both sides of that pay discrepancy, I have come to the conclusion that most of our economic theory about the nature of business and competition is bullshit. I now see corporations as social organizations which exist to keep educated people fed and controlled, everything else is secondary. The sums are big because the money has to get divvied up amongst everyone, even if the work involved is just changing a hex value by the lowest paid and probably most technically skilled person in the network.
- icedchai 6y ago
  Yep, that money has to pay for not only the developer "doing the work", but all the overhead: the product managers, QA, release/deployment... then redo of work because someone used the wrong shade of blue.
serverholic 6y ago
Then he shouldn't take the money.
- reaperducer 6y ago
  See also: "Let them eat cake."

throwaway92011 6y ago

He was co founder of Nodejitsu, the company who raised kickstarter funding for NPM, the same time NPM raised money from investors . There was a legal conflict about who owns NPM, they didnt refund or make a statement the money they raised for a project they don't own. That Kickstarter campaign was a scam and they got away with it.

reaperducer 6y ago

If you're using his work, pay him something. Everything else is just excuses.