4 ms·

> Plus, bought by Anthropic. Who thinks this is a positive?!

by TingPing 4mo ago

vmsp 4mo ago
That wasn't a value judgment on the acquisition. I was just pointing out that it made the project more sustainable.
- TeriyakiBomb 4mo ago
  It really doesn't. You think Anthropic will still be in business in 10 years? If they are, it's not likely they'll be in the same shape.
- Sammi 4mo ago
  That's a yes and no. Venture funded companies like Anthropic have a history of low follow through with peripheral projects (like Bun is for them). Of course they do - their responsibility is ultimately primarily to their investors - not to Bun. So the risk now is that Anthropic will can Bun whenever they just lose interest or feel it's just a drain that's not contributing directly to their bottom line. Node.js itself did have trouble finding a corporate home that was interested in providing good support for the project, and that's how we got the oi.js fork of Node, which luckily led to Node being transitioned to a foundation and the projects merged. This whole history is what made me so surprised that Ryan of all people would attempt another js runtime (Deno) project as a corporate project. And it's the reason I'm staying away from both Bun and Node. I can't afford platform risk like this. I need my startup to be built on a project that has a more reliable future trajectory, which is what you get with a proper open source project (emphasis on project) that you get with Node. Node is stable and still getting features, but most importantly it's not going away.
  - nine_k 4mo ago
    Bun is not peripheral, it's what Claude Code runs on.
    - Sammi 4mo ago
      I see how this might seem like it would make Bun important to Anthropic, but there are just so many examples of companies losing interest in the technology that their product "runs on". It's just infrastructure to them. To the C-suite, infrastructure is fungible.
- pier25 4mo ago
  Only if you think Anthropic is a sustainable business per se which remains to be seen.
simonw 4mo ago
It means they're a whole lot less likely to run out of money, which makes them a safer bet as a dependency.
- tarruda 4mo ago
  > safer bet as a dependency. The recent 1 million line vibe coded PR suggests it is not so reliable as a dependency.
  - simonw 4mo ago
    That was Bun at Anthropic, not uv at OpenAI. (UPDATE: My mistake, this thread is about Bun, not uv.)
    - matt_kantor 4mo ago
      Is this a joke I'm not getting or are your wires crossed? Bun is the topic of this subthread.
      - simonw 4mo ago
        Huh, you're right. I'd just been reading this other thread about uv and got my wires crossed: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48228788 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48228788
- allthetime 4mo ago
  Running out of money is never the issue with a big company buying an open source project. There are countless examples of projects dying or changing significantly for the worse after acquisition. Also “no human wrote any of this code” is not my personal benchmark for a reliable dependency.
  - pessimizer 4mo ago
    > Running out of money is never the issue with a big company buying an open source project. I'm going to dare to say that running out of money was often an issue before a big company bought an open source project.

> Plus, bought by Anthropic. Who thinks this is a positive?!

vmsp 4mo ago

That wasn't a value judgment on the acquisition. I was just pointing out that it made the project more sustainable.

TeriyakiBomb 4mo ago
It really doesn't. You think Anthropic will still be in business in 10 years? If they are, it's not likely they'll be in the same shape.
Sammi 4mo ago
That's a yes and no. Venture funded companies like Anthropic have a history of low follow through with peripheral projects (like Bun is for them). Of course they do - their responsibility is ultimately primarily to their investors - not to Bun. So the risk now is that Anthropic will can Bun whenever they just lose interest or feel it's just a drain that's not contributing directly to their bottom line. Node.js itself did have trouble finding a corporate home that was interested in providing good support for the project, and that's how we got the oi.js fork of Node, which luckily led to Node being transitioned to a foundation and the projects merged. This whole history is what made me so surprised that Ryan of all people would attempt another js runtime (Deno) project as a corporate project. And it's the reason I'm staying away from both Bun and Node. I can't afford platform risk like this. I need my startup to be built on a project that has a more reliable future trajectory, which is what you get with a proper open source project (emphasis on project) that you get with Node. Node is stable and still getting features, but most importantly it's not going away.
- nine_k 4mo ago
  Bun is not peripheral, it's what Claude Code runs on.
  - Sammi 4mo ago
    I see how this might seem like it would make Bun important to Anthropic, but there are just so many examples of companies losing interest in the technology that their product "runs on". It's just infrastructure to them. To the C-suite, infrastructure is fungible.
pier25 4mo ago
Only if you think Anthropic is a sustainable business per se which remains to be seen.

simonw 4mo ago

It means they're a whole lot less likely to run out of money, which makes them a safer bet as a dependency.

tarruda 4mo ago
> safer bet as a dependency. The recent 1 million line vibe coded PR suggests it is not so reliable as a dependency.
- simonw 4mo ago
  That was Bun at Anthropic, not uv at OpenAI. (UPDATE: My mistake, this thread is about Bun, not uv.)
  - matt_kantor 4mo ago
    Is this a joke I'm not getting or are your wires crossed? Bun is the topic of this subthread.
    - simonw 4mo ago
      Huh, you're right. I'd just been reading this other thread about uv and got my wires crossed: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48228788 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48228788
allthetime 4mo ago
Running out of money is never the issue with a big company buying an open source project. There are countless examples of projects dying or changing significantly for the worse after acquisition. Also “no human wrote any of this code” is not my personal benchmark for a reliable dependency.
- pessimizer 4mo ago
  > Running out of money is never the issue with a big company buying an open source project. I'm going to dare to say that running out of money was often an issue before a big company bought an open source project.