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You can spin it however you like, but renaming the real one "fakerjs-legacy" and appropriating all sponsors is a scumbag move.

pawelmurias 5y ago
I assume nobody in their right would sponsor the orginal author who instead of maintaining the project distributes malware and builds bombs.
- ABeeSea 5y ago
  The bomb building arrest is not getting enough attention in all this. He is clearly mentally unwell.
- DarkWiiPlayer 5y ago
  It is up to them to cancel their sponsorship. At most I'd go along with cancelling all sponsorships, but even that would be a huge asshole-move. This is outright theft.
PragmaticPulp 5y ago
The terms of the funding are attached to the project, not a specific maintainer: > During the conversation with Ben, he went over the terms and conditions of the Open Collective with me. > Ben said that simply, "The funding is attached to the project, not the current maintainer." None of Marak's personal GitHub sponsors were changed (obviously). To be clear: Marak deleted the original project as part of his protest. The sponsors in question are donating money to sponsor the project, not a single person. It wouldn't make sense to send their money to someone who deleted the project.
- thrdbndndn 5y ago
  Saying "the funding is attached to the project" doesn't really answer anything. This new fakerjs isn't the old project, technically or practically speaking (technically being the important part here). So funding attached to the old project should be still attached to that now-abandoned fakerjs, or straightly up canceled if Open Collective considers it violates their terms, instead of transferring. The fact they can't do it themselves and asked Open Collective's exclusive director to do it "manually" basically self-confirmed it shouldn't be done.
  - PragmaticPulp 5y ago
    > This new fakerjs isn't the old project, technically or practically speaking (technically being the important part here). No, it's definitely a continuation of the old project. Marak deleted the old project. It's now just a non-functional GitHub repo with a Readme that says "What really happened with Aaron Swartz?". Nobody would consider that to be more like the original fakerjs than this active fork that, literally, retains the original fakerjs. > So funding attached to the old project should be still attached to that now-abandoned fakerjs Not just abandoned. It's deleted. Or at least rendered useless, devoid of history, and non-functional. Why would they continue funneling money to that? Why would they not give money to the actual project as it continues?
    - thrdbndndn 5y ago
      That's the sponsors' decision to make. As I said, I have no issue if Open Collective just cancels these sponsorships. What I don't agree is to transfer its sponsors to an account that has zero relationship with original account.
      - PragmaticPulp 5y ago
        > That's the sponsors' decision to make. Marak's GitHub sponsors aren't changed. If people wanted to specifically sponsor Marak, they would have chosen to do it there. The Open Collective is very specifically about the project, not a specific person. > What I don't agree is to transfer its sponsors to an account that has zero relationship with original account. The current fakerjs has more of a relationships with the original code than what's in Marak's repo. I don't see the issue. The Open Collective is specifically about sponsoring the project, which Marak clearly and publicly washed his hands of. Again, they weren't sponsoring Marak. They were sponsoring the project. The project is still going.
        thrdbndndn 5y ago
        Do you also have no issue if GitHub just transfers Marak's repo to the new team? Or all the stars? Since obviously most of people are starring the "project" not him.
- mbreese 5y ago
  Then you cancel the sponsorships to the project and notify the supporters. When the maintainer effectively cancels the project, this makes sense. But you don’t migrate supporters automatically over to a brand new project (even if it is the most stable fork of the original). > We came to the determination that users unfamiliar with the whole Faker situation wouldn't know that the repository's sponsorship links aren't funding the continued development of the project. If the intent of the supporters was to support the project, then you can ask them to continue funding the new fork. But you don’t just move funding by default. Cancelling the ongoing support would be fine, but you are relying on people (who were never aware of the switch and the new fork) being okay with this, without their consent. This is a messy situation, but you can’t make these decisions unilaterally. Inform the supporters and let them decide.
  - PragmaticPulp 5y ago
    > but you are relying on people (who were never aware of the switch and the new fork) being okay with this, without their consent. Open Collective makes it clear that the sponsorship is for the project, not for a specific person. It's not "without their consent". It's literally the terms of the Open Collective.
    - ricardobeat 5y ago
      Does it matter what Open Collective thinks if most people believe this is immoral?
      - fault1 5y ago
        Define "most" people.... To me, this is like the left-pad incident and npm. There was a vocal minority who denounced npm for looking after the greater good, maintaining continuity and transferring the project to someone else. In this case, since the author also deleted the project, the proper way to maintain continuity for the sponsors seems to transfer it to the new community of folks who are interested in maintaining the project. Sponsoring the old deleted project does nobody any good. Personally, I don't see anything wrong with what OC did.
- DarkWiiPlayer 5y ago
  This is a bullshit excuse. People don't decide to sponsor a project in a vacuum. They look at the project, its history, and the circumstances of its creation. The project is free to begin with, so what is there to sponsor in the first place? If I make a donation to a charity which I trust, and some third party simply takes the money and hands it over to some other charity instead, claiming that it doesn't matter because the goal is the same, I'd be rightfully outraged. How is this different?
afavour 5y ago
Serious question: why? What would you say those sponsors were sponsoring?
- throwawayay02 5y ago
  - shadowgovt 5y ago
    Then how do you know they don't support automatic hassle-free transfer of the sponsorship?
    - DarkWiiPlayer 5y ago
      This isn't either or. If one single sponsor does not agree with their sponsorship being transferred, then that is THEFT. There's just no way of excusing that. On the other hand, even if an overwhelming majority were okay with sponsoring the fork instead, cancelling their sponsorship and emailing them about the reason and how they can sponsor the new project (or continue sponsoring the old one, if for whatever reason they'd want that), then that's a minor inconvenience. Is it really such a hot take that erring on the side of minor inconvenience is better than accepting outright theft based solely on the perception that most™ users will be okay with it?
dimgl 5y ago
I mean... don't torpedo your own project that other people use and you won't lose funding.
joshxyz 5y ago
Okay, so how are they supposed to do it then?
- epolanski 5y ago
  Who's they and why they, whoever they are.

pawelmurias 5y ago

I assume nobody in their right would sponsor the orginal author who instead of maintaining the project distributes malware and builds bombs.

ABeeSea 5y ago
The bomb building arrest is not getting enough attention in all this. He is clearly mentally unwell.
DarkWiiPlayer 5y ago
It is up to them to cancel their sponsorship. At most I'd go along with cancelling all sponsorships, but even that would be a huge asshole-move. This is outright theft.

PragmaticPulp 5y ago

The terms of the funding are attached to the project, not a specific maintainer: > During the conversation with Ben, he went over the terms and conditions of the Open Collective with me. > Ben said that simply, "The funding is attached to the project, not the current maintainer." None of Marak's personal GitHub sponsors were changed (obviously). To be clear: Marak deleted the original project as part of his protest. The sponsors in question are donating money to sponsor the project, not a single person. It wouldn't make sense to send their money to someone who deleted the project.

thrdbndndn 5y ago
Saying "the funding is attached to the project" doesn't really answer anything. This new fakerjs isn't the old project, technically or practically speaking (technically being the important part here). So funding attached to the old project should be still attached to that now-abandoned fakerjs, or straightly up canceled if Open Collective considers it violates their terms, instead of transferring. The fact they can't do it themselves and asked Open Collective's exclusive director to do it "manually" basically self-confirmed it shouldn't be done.
- PragmaticPulp 5y ago
  > This new fakerjs isn't the old project, technically or practically speaking (technically being the important part here). No, it's definitely a continuation of the old project. Marak deleted the old project. It's now just a non-functional GitHub repo with a Readme that says "What really happened with Aaron Swartz?". Nobody would consider that to be more like the original fakerjs than this active fork that, literally, retains the original fakerjs. > So funding attached to the old project should be still attached to that now-abandoned fakerjs Not just abandoned. It's deleted. Or at least rendered useless, devoid of history, and non-functional. Why would they continue funneling money to that? Why would they not give money to the actual project as it continues?
  - thrdbndndn 5y ago
    That's the sponsors' decision to make. As I said, I have no issue if Open Collective just cancels these sponsorships. What I don't agree is to transfer its sponsors to an account that has zero relationship with original account.
    - PragmaticPulp 5y ago
      > That's the sponsors' decision to make. Marak's GitHub sponsors aren't changed. If people wanted to specifically sponsor Marak, they would have chosen to do it there. The Open Collective is very specifically about the project, not a specific person. > What I don't agree is to transfer its sponsors to an account that has zero relationship with original account. The current fakerjs has more of a relationships with the original code than what's in Marak's repo. I don't see the issue. The Open Collective is specifically about sponsoring the project, which Marak clearly and publicly washed his hands of. Again, they weren't sponsoring Marak. They were sponsoring the project. The project is still going.
      - thrdbndndn 5y ago
        Do you also have no issue if GitHub just transfers Marak's repo to the new team? Or all the stars? Since obviously most of people are starring the "project" not him.
mbreese 5y ago
Then you cancel the sponsorships to the project and notify the supporters. When the maintainer effectively cancels the project, this makes sense. But you don’t migrate supporters automatically over to a brand new project (even if it is the most stable fork of the original). > We came to the determination that users unfamiliar with the whole Faker situation wouldn't know that the repository's sponsorship links aren't funding the continued development of the project. If the intent of the supporters was to support the project, then you can ask them to continue funding the new fork. But you don’t just move funding by default. Cancelling the ongoing support would be fine, but you are relying on people (who were never aware of the switch and the new fork) being okay with this, without their consent. This is a messy situation, but you can’t make these decisions unilaterally. Inform the supporters and let them decide.
- PragmaticPulp 5y ago
  > but you are relying on people (who were never aware of the switch and the new fork) being okay with this, without their consent. Open Collective makes it clear that the sponsorship is for the project, not for a specific person. It's not "without their consent". It's literally the terms of the Open Collective.
  - ricardobeat 5y ago
    Does it matter what Open Collective thinks if most people believe this is immoral?
    - fault1 5y ago
      Define "most" people.... To me, this is like the left-pad incident and npm. There was a vocal minority who denounced npm for looking after the greater good, maintaining continuity and transferring the project to someone else. In this case, since the author also deleted the project, the proper way to maintain continuity for the sponsors seems to transfer it to the new community of folks who are interested in maintaining the project. Sponsoring the old deleted project does nobody any good. Personally, I don't see anything wrong with what OC did.
DarkWiiPlayer 5y ago
This is a bullshit excuse. People don't decide to sponsor a project in a vacuum. They look at the project, its history, and the circumstances of its creation. The project is free to begin with, so what is there to sponsor in the first place? If I make a donation to a charity which I trust, and some third party simply takes the money and hands it over to some other charity instead, claiming that it doesn't matter because the goal is the same, I'd be rightfully outraged. How is this different?

afavour 5y ago

Serious question: why? What would you say those sponsors were sponsoring?

throwawayay02 5y ago
- shadowgovt 5y ago
  Then how do you know they don't support automatic hassle-free transfer of the sponsorship?
  - DarkWiiPlayer 5y ago
    This isn't either or. If one single sponsor does not agree with their sponsorship being transferred, then that is THEFT. There's just no way of excusing that. On the other hand, even if an overwhelming majority were okay with sponsoring the fork instead, cancelling their sponsorship and emailing them about the reason and how they can sponsor the new project (or continue sponsoring the old one, if for whatever reason they'd want that), then that's a minor inconvenience. Is it really such a hot take that erring on the side of minor inconvenience is better than accepting outright theft based solely on the perception that most™ users will be okay with it?

dimgl 5y ago

I mean... don't torpedo your own project that other people use and you won't lose funding.

joshxyz 5y ago

Okay, so how are they supposed to do it then?

epolanski 5y ago
Who's they and why they, whoever they are.