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Hmm, but as I understand original developer was rather pissed off by situation when devs are working on projects in theirs own time, and those projects sometime

Hmm, but as I understand original developer was rather pissed off by situation when devs are working on projects in theirs own time, and those projects sometimes become important tools to lower costs of creating software for big companies, and authors are not getting a dime and are forced to use some kinds of sponsorship and so on.... In such case making one of tools "community" owned smells like some kind of dick move, even if original wasn't doing too many commits. Working for companies we are taking big bucks for writing some glorified invoicing systems (let be honest 90% or 99% of business logic is "move from screen to DB, move from DB to screen"), but code which is often important part of whole process is created for free by some folks. Strange.

chaostheory 5y ago
I've already posted this before, but what Marak has done is anything but reasonable. If anyone was being a "dick", it was him. If he just wanted corporations to pay, there are plenty of other alternatives like changing the license for future versions like SugarCRM did. It's been years since they've done that and they have plenty of customers. https://sugarclub.sugarcrm.com/engage/b/sugar-news/posts/sugar-community-edition-open-source-project-ends https://sugarclub.sugarcrm.com/engage/b/sugar-news/posts/sug... Since the developer in question has been acquired in the past (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nodejitsu https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nodejitsu), he could also make it into a SAAS play. He has the connections, skill and experience. Otherwise, he can just walk away like everyone else. Maliciously changing code to break people's stuff is uncalled for. If he wanted to charge people from the start, then maybe he shouldn't have used the free for all MIT license for his code? If you want more restrictions on usage, choose a more restrictive license. Here's one of many restrictive licenses that changes depending on who's using the software https://writing.kemitchell.com/2021/06/15/Big-Time-1.0.0.html https://writing.kemitchell.com/2021/06/15/Big-Time-1.0.0.htm... Fakerjs is also not completely original work. It's a port of a Ruby library which is also named Faker. That Ruby library is also likely a port of a Perl library that is also named Faker. I haven't read anything about Marak even mentioning to support those projects financially. On a related note, Marak is not well mentally which helps rationalize what he did https://www.qgazette.com/articles/more-charges-possible-for-astoria-bomb-suspect/ https://www.qgazette.com/articles/more-charges-possible-for-... "A team of NYPD investigators and FBI agents found potassium nitrate, which is used in fertilizer, metal containers, fuses and other bomb-making materials in the crate, along with printed bomb-making and survivalist materials and a book on how to make a bomb scattered throughout the home, the source said." “'The chemicals separately are what they are, but taken together they can assemble an explosive device,' NYPD Dep. Commissioner of Intelligence and Counterterrorism, John Miller, said. 'There were books about military explosives, booby traps and other things.'" I could be wrong, but Marak purposely trying to sabotage other people's projects was a precursor to him attempting to hurt people in real life. This was not reasonable behavior from a sane person. He should not be getting this much support from so many people on HN.
- npn 5y ago
  > he must do this, he must do that. how about you do it for him? like forking and maintaining your own copy of faker.js and all the nodejs packages you are actively using in the first place? ad hominem does not help your argument.
  - IiydAbITMvJkqKf 5y ago
    The word "must" never appears in the comment you quoted. Please read the comment before accusing its author of ad hominem attacks.
  - chaostheory 5y ago
    You either didn’t read my comment, or you meant to respond to a different one. He didn’t have to do anything. He could have just walked away. I only wrote the other stuff to show that there are other better alternatives to getting paid as a response to people who supported the terrible thing that Marak did to open source.
- VPenkov 5y ago
  Morally the author is in the wrong according to many. He did publish malicious versions against the short term interest of the community. However he also distributed the software under the MIT license - that is "as-is" and "without warranty of any kind". So I'm having some trouble understanding why would you point out his personal life, psychological state, or his past projects as justification for anything related to Faker? I haven't checked earlier versions of Faker but 5.5.3 does credit both the Ruby and the Perl libraries.
  - IiydAbITMvJkqKf 5y ago
    No court in the world will accept the MIT liability waiver as a defense, when the vendor intentionally distributed malicious code.
  - chaostheory 5y ago
    In the spirit of the law, that license is meant to protect authors from honest mistakes. I highly doubt that purposely made malicious changes will fully protect authors.

chaostheory 5y ago

I've already posted this before, but what Marak has done is anything but reasonable. If anyone was being a "dick", it was him. If he just wanted corporations to pay, there are plenty of other alternatives like changing the license for future versions like SugarCRM did. It's been years since they've done that and they have plenty of customers. https://sugarclub.sugarcrm.com/engage/b/sugar-news/posts/sugar-community-edition-open-source-project-ends https://sugarclub.sugarcrm.com/engage/b/sugar-news/posts/sug... Since the developer in question has been acquired in the past (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nodejitsu https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nodejitsu), he could also make it into a SAAS play. He has the connections, skill and experience. Otherwise, he can just walk away like everyone else. Maliciously changing code to break people's stuff is uncalled for. If he wanted to charge people from the start, then maybe he shouldn't have used the free for all MIT license for his code? If you want more restrictions on usage, choose a more restrictive license. Here's one of many restrictive licenses that changes depending on who's using the software https://writing.kemitchell.com/2021/06/15/Big-Time-1.0.0.html https://writing.kemitchell.com/2021/06/15/Big-Time-1.0.0.htm... Fakerjs is also not completely original work. It's a port of a Ruby library which is also named Faker. That Ruby library is also likely a port of a Perl library that is also named Faker. I haven't read anything about Marak even mentioning to support those projects financially. On a related note, Marak is not well mentally which helps rationalize what he did https://www.qgazette.com/articles/more-charges-possible-for-astoria-bomb-suspect/ https://www.qgazette.com/articles/more-charges-possible-for-... "A team of NYPD investigators and FBI agents found potassium nitrate, which is used in fertilizer, metal containers, fuses and other bomb-making materials in the crate, along with printed bomb-making and survivalist materials and a book on how to make a bomb scattered throughout the home, the source said." “'The chemicals separately are what they are, but taken together they can assemble an explosive device,' NYPD Dep. Commissioner of Intelligence and Counterterrorism, John Miller, said. 'There were books about military explosives, booby traps and other things.'" I could be wrong, but Marak purposely trying to sabotage other people's projects was a precursor to him attempting to hurt people in real life. This was not reasonable behavior from a sane person. He should not be getting this much support from so many people on HN.

npn 5y ago
> he must do this, he must do that. how about you do it for him? like forking and maintaining your own copy of faker.js and all the nodejs packages you are actively using in the first place? ad hominem does not help your argument.
- IiydAbITMvJkqKf 5y ago
  The word "must" never appears in the comment you quoted. Please read the comment before accusing its author of ad hominem attacks.
- chaostheory 5y ago
  You either didn’t read my comment, or you meant to respond to a different one. He didn’t have to do anything. He could have just walked away. I only wrote the other stuff to show that there are other better alternatives to getting paid as a response to people who supported the terrible thing that Marak did to open source.
VPenkov 5y ago
Morally the author is in the wrong according to many. He did publish malicious versions against the short term interest of the community. However he also distributed the software under the MIT license - that is "as-is" and "without warranty of any kind". So I'm having some trouble understanding why would you point out his personal life, psychological state, or his past projects as justification for anything related to Faker? I haven't checked earlier versions of Faker but 5.5.3 does credit both the Ruby and the Perl libraries.
- IiydAbITMvJkqKf 5y ago
  No court in the world will accept the MIT liability waiver as a defense, when the vendor intentionally distributed malicious code.
- chaostheory 5y ago
  In the spirit of the law, that license is meant to protect authors from honest mistakes. I highly doubt that purposely made malicious changes will fully protect authors.