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I really don't like that Joyent basically 'owns' nodejs. They gain from more people using nodejs and using it in a certain way; the complex dynamic happening he

by selmnoo 13y ago

I really don't like that Joyent basically 'owns' nodejs. They gain from more people using nodejs and using it in a certain way; the complex dynamic happening here is a major turn-off (Joyent controls the nodejs repo). Not to mention the recent brouhaha in which Joyent facilitated forcing out one of the biggest nodejs contributors, an individual who incidentally happened to be an employee of their biggest competitor. Do you really want to use the products of this environment?

matthewmacleod 13y ago
I expect that most people, like myself, want to use good development tools and platforms, rather than waste time getting involved in whatever petty drama happens to be going on. Node is open-source, and if Joyent act like assholes, it'll be forked.
- argonaut 13y ago
  The "we/you can just fork it" argument really doesn't work out. And when it's used by maintainers to justify something, it's a total cop-out. The fact is that forking it will fragment the community, confuse users, slow down adoption, and generally have negative effects for years and years. Even if everyone eventually moves to the fork (best-case scenario!), the ecosystem will have lost tremendous amounts of momentum.
  - steveklabnik 13y ago
    > The "we/you can just fork it" argument really doesn't work out. Worked pretty well for MySQL.
    - beaumartinez 13y ago
      Not really, MariaDB has nowhere near the adoption levels MySQL has. Even so, MySQL was one of the biggest gratis databases, and it happened to be bought by a company that specialized in selling established enterprise database software. There was concern RE the support a gratis database would have under such a company. The situation that created MariaDB is very specific, and very different to the one Node.js is in.
      - mattmanser 13y ago
        LibreOffice then?
        alecthomas 13y ago
        I think the XOrg fork from XFree86 is the best example I can think of.
- tjholowaychuk 13y ago
  I bet if we forked it people would migrate no problem, as long as most the major contributors were involved. IMHO Joyent doesn't add much value, at least that I've seen, if anything they seem to want to keep it fragile so you have to use their tools to debug it properly.
sehr 13y ago
It's a repo, it can be forked at any moment if something goes awry. And I don't really think a misguided blog post is 'forcing out one of the biggest nodejs contributors'. I'd rather have nice tools made possible by a company I disagreed with on petty grounds than no tools at all.
rmrfrmrf 13y ago
1. There are SO MANY open source projects that are "owned" by companies. It's nothing new. 2. I'm so tired of hearing about the supposed "drama" of the NodeJS community from people who don't understand open source projects. For one, I checked the guy's github yesterday and he still contributes to node, so his "taking my ball and going home" bit was a bluff. More importantly, though, is the point that this person went out of his way to stop an open source contribution that he personally didn't agree with. He did, in effect, more work by declining the pull request and injecting his own beliefs into a community project. I feel it needs to be said that I applaud Joyent's position on gender inclusiveness since we clearly have a LONG way to go to get people to start caring about issues like this.
- iends 13y ago
  I think you really should really reexamine the situation that occurred if you think the person "went of of his way to stop an open source contribution that he personally didn't agree with." That is not what happened. Either you don't understand what happened or you are intentionally spreading FUD. Ben rejected the pull request because there was no CLA from the contributor. It was a one line change, but it didn't adhere to the process established by the node core. (He's also English as a second language and didn't see how this could be offensive). Another contributor, Isaac, entered the fray and accepted the pull request (it's not clear if there was a signed CLA at this point), subverting the authority of the other core contributor. At this point it becomes a question of authority between two core contributors one working for Joyent and one for Strongloop. It seems there was already something negative between the developers and the companies before this occurred. Out of anger of his authority being subverted Ben reverted the pull request again. Isaac didn't communicate with Ben, and Ben was angry. Both handled it poorly, but Ben comes out looking poorly because the internet hate mob doesn't think before acting.
  - untog 13y ago
    Ben rejected the pull request because there was no CLA from the contributor. Funny, because what he said was: "Sorry, not interested in trivial changes like that." https://github.com/joyent/libuv/pull/1015#issuecomment-29538615 https://github.com/joyent/libuv/pull/1015#issuecomment-29538...
daveslash 13y ago
" Not to mention the recent brouhaha in which Joyent facilitated forcing out one of the biggest nodejs contributors, an individual who incidentally happened to be an employee of their biggest competitor." Who was that?
- ffreire 13y ago
  Ben Noordhuis: http://blog.nodejs.org/2013/12/03/bnoordhuis-departure/ http://blog.nodejs.org/2013/12/03/bnoordhuis-departure/
- delinka 13y ago
  Ben Noordhuis. See [1] for Joyent's opinion on the matter. 1 - http://www.joyent.com/blog/the-power-of-a-pronoun http://www.joyent.com/blog/the-power-of-a-pronoun
  - babby 13y ago
    Wow, that is actually disgusting. How far up their own asses are Joyent?
    - doktrin 13y ago
      >> "an engineer that has so little empathy as to not understand why the use of gendered pronouns is a concern almost certainly makes poor technical decisions as well." If this had been written by The Onion, and not Joyent, I wouldn't have batted an eyelash.
      - vacri 13y ago
        Someone also raised the point that Noordhuis is not a native English speaker, and his native tongue uses gendered nouns to begin with. Someone with that experience is probably less likely to see a problem with the concept of gendered nouns. While it's common for the Dutch to speak several languages, English is the only one I am aware of that doesn't gender nouns. The irony is that if Joyent had've shown the empathy they demand, they might have allowed some leeway for error, and strove to have done better next time. I was significantly disappointed in that Joyent blog post. Hopefully Cantrill has learned his lesson and next time will seek to heal rifts rather than exacerbate them. It's actually still not too late to use the same channel - the commercial blog - to do a mea culpa apology and promise to be more reserved in future.
Zikes 13y ago
Guys, guys, come on. We should respect their wishes to never talk about that again and forget the whole thing ever happened.[1] I mean, it's not like they ought to apologize for the atrocious way they facilitated the virtual lynching of one of their core contributors. Better to just sweep it all under the rug. [1] http://blog.nodejs.org/2013/12/03/bnoordhuis-departure/ http://blog.nodejs.org/2013/12/03/bnoordhuis-departure/ EDIT: For the folks that say it's just "petty drama", I invite you to read another man's account of a very similar experience: http://www.polygon.com/2013/11/6/5075106/adam-orth-xbox-one-gdc-next http://www.polygon.com/2013/11/6/5075106/adam-orth-xbox-one-... Internet bullying isn't just some thing that happens to teenagers. It's a stream of tweets, phone calls, texts, hate mail, death threats, and more. I can only speculate about how much of that Ben received, but a fair share of it was very public, and Joyent was a participant in that. As the face of node.js it was Joyent's responsibility to defuse the situation and protect the people involved. Instead they threw gasoline into the fire, further inciting the mob justice that was already well underway.
- untog 13y ago
  We should respect their wishes to never talk about that again It's hardly just their wishes. Plenty of us wish that any discussion about Node wouldn't immediately get dragged down into petty drama. Maybe we could, y'know, talk about the language and ecosystem for a change.
  - Zikes 13y ago
    I think you posted your reply just as I made an edit to my comment. I invite you to re-read my comment and reassess the value of the "petty drama".
- sehr 13y ago
  "virtual lynching" Hyperbole much? "...to reject a pull request that eliminates a gendered pronoun on the principle that pronouns should in fact be gendered would constitute a fireable offense for me and for Joyent..." That was (imo) the worst part of the blog post. You're comparing death threats from obsessed fans of a platform known for being filled with users of a younger age, to angry backhanded tweets and blog posts from professional software developers. C'mon now.
grannyg00se 13y ago
"the complex dynamic happening here is a major turn-off (Joyent controls the nodejs repo)" Can you clarify what off-putting complex dynamic you're referring to?
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
camus2 13y ago
NodeJS is an idea(and a trademark...) but there is no reason why it couldnt be ported to other envirronments like the JVM for instance. Joyent and a few other businesses own NodeJS development that's a fact,i'm curious as to how they will make money out of it.

by selmnoo 13y ago

matthewmacleod 13y ago

I expect that most people, like myself, want to use good development tools and platforms, rather than waste time getting involved in whatever petty drama happens to be going on. Node is open-source, and if Joyent act like assholes, it'll be forked.

argonaut 13y ago
The "we/you can just fork it" argument really doesn't work out. And when it's used by maintainers to justify something, it's a total cop-out. The fact is that forking it will fragment the community, confuse users, slow down adoption, and generally have negative effects for years and years. Even if everyone eventually moves to the fork (best-case scenario!), the ecosystem will have lost tremendous amounts of momentum.
- steveklabnik 13y ago
  > The "we/you can just fork it" argument really doesn't work out. Worked pretty well for MySQL.
  - beaumartinez 13y ago
    Not really, MariaDB has nowhere near the adoption levels MySQL has. Even so, MySQL was one of the biggest gratis databases, and it happened to be bought by a company that specialized in selling established enterprise database software. There was concern RE the support a gratis database would have under such a company. The situation that created MariaDB is very specific, and very different to the one Node.js is in.
    - mattmanser 13y ago
      LibreOffice then?
      - alecthomas 13y ago
        I think the XOrg fork from XFree86 is the best example I can think of.
tjholowaychuk 13y ago
I bet if we forked it people would migrate no problem, as long as most the major contributors were involved. IMHO Joyent doesn't add much value, at least that I've seen, if anything they seem to want to keep it fragile so you have to use their tools to debug it properly.

sehr 13y ago

It's a repo, it can be forked at any moment if something goes awry. And I don't really think a misguided blog post is 'forcing out one of the biggest nodejs contributors'. I'd rather have nice tools made possible by a company I disagreed with on petty grounds than no tools at all.

rmrfrmrf 13y ago

1. There are SO MANY open source projects that are "owned" by companies. It's nothing new. 2. I'm so tired of hearing about the supposed "drama" of the NodeJS community from people who don't understand open source projects. For one, I checked the guy's github yesterday and he still contributes to node, so his "taking my ball and going home" bit was a bluff. More importantly, though, is the point that this person went out of his way to stop an open source contribution that he personally didn't agree with. He did, in effect, more work by declining the pull request and injecting his own beliefs into a community project. I feel it needs to be said that I applaud Joyent's position on gender inclusiveness since we clearly have a LONG way to go to get people to start caring about issues like this.

iends 13y ago
I think you really should really reexamine the situation that occurred if you think the person "went of of his way to stop an open source contribution that he personally didn't agree with." That is not what happened. Either you don't understand what happened or you are intentionally spreading FUD. Ben rejected the pull request because there was no CLA from the contributor. It was a one line change, but it didn't adhere to the process established by the node core. (He's also English as a second language and didn't see how this could be offensive). Another contributor, Isaac, entered the fray and accepted the pull request (it's not clear if there was a signed CLA at this point), subverting the authority of the other core contributor. At this point it becomes a question of authority between two core contributors one working for Joyent and one for Strongloop. It seems there was already something negative between the developers and the companies before this occurred. Out of anger of his authority being subverted Ben reverted the pull request again. Isaac didn't communicate with Ben, and Ben was angry. Both handled it poorly, but Ben comes out looking poorly because the internet hate mob doesn't think before acting.
- untog 13y ago
  Ben rejected the pull request because there was no CLA from the contributor. Funny, because what he said was: "Sorry, not interested in trivial changes like that." https://github.com/joyent/libuv/pull/1015#issuecomment-29538615 https://github.com/joyent/libuv/pull/1015#issuecomment-29538...

daveslash 13y ago

" Not to mention the recent brouhaha in which Joyent facilitated forcing out one of the biggest nodejs contributors, an individual who incidentally happened to be an employee of their biggest competitor." Who was that?

ffreire 13y ago
Ben Noordhuis: http://blog.nodejs.org/2013/12/03/bnoordhuis-departure/ http://blog.nodejs.org/2013/12/03/bnoordhuis-departure/
delinka 13y ago
Ben Noordhuis. See [1] for Joyent's opinion on the matter. 1 - http://www.joyent.com/blog/the-power-of-a-pronoun http://www.joyent.com/blog/the-power-of-a-pronoun
- babby 13y ago
  Wow, that is actually disgusting. How far up their own asses are Joyent?
  - doktrin 13y ago
    >> "an engineer that has so little empathy as to not understand why the use of gendered pronouns is a concern almost certainly makes poor technical decisions as well." If this had been written by The Onion, and not Joyent, I wouldn't have batted an eyelash.
    - vacri 13y ago
      Someone also raised the point that Noordhuis is not a native English speaker, and his native tongue uses gendered nouns to begin with. Someone with that experience is probably less likely to see a problem with the concept of gendered nouns. While it's common for the Dutch to speak several languages, English is the only one I am aware of that doesn't gender nouns. The irony is that if Joyent had've shown the empathy they demand, they might have allowed some leeway for error, and strove to have done better next time. I was significantly disappointed in that Joyent blog post. Hopefully Cantrill has learned his lesson and next time will seek to heal rifts rather than exacerbate them. It's actually still not too late to use the same channel - the commercial blog - to do a mea culpa apology and promise to be more reserved in future.

Zikes 13y ago

Guys, guys, come on. We should respect their wishes to never talk about that again and forget the whole thing ever happened.[1] I mean, it's not like they ought to apologize for the atrocious way they facilitated the virtual lynching of one of their core contributors. Better to just sweep it all under the rug. [1] http://blog.nodejs.org/2013/12/03/bnoordhuis-departure/ http://blog.nodejs.org/2013/12/03/bnoordhuis-departure/ EDIT: For the folks that say it's just "petty drama", I invite you to read another man's account of a very similar experience: http://www.polygon.com/2013/11/6/5075106/adam-orth-xbox-one-gdc-next http://www.polygon.com/2013/11/6/5075106/adam-orth-xbox-one-... Internet bullying isn't just some thing that happens to teenagers. It's a stream of tweets, phone calls, texts, hate mail, death threats, and more. I can only speculate about how much of that Ben received, but a fair share of it was very public, and Joyent was a participant in that. As the face of node.js it was Joyent's responsibility to defuse the situation and protect the people involved. Instead they threw gasoline into the fire, further inciting the mob justice that was already well underway.

untog 13y ago
We should respect their wishes to never talk about that again It's hardly just their wishes. Plenty of us wish that any discussion about Node wouldn't immediately get dragged down into petty drama. Maybe we could, y'know, talk about the language and ecosystem for a change.
- Zikes 13y ago
  I think you posted your reply just as I made an edit to my comment. I invite you to re-read my comment and reassess the value of the "petty drama".
sehr 13y ago
"virtual lynching" Hyperbole much? "...to reject a pull request that eliminates a gendered pronoun on the principle that pronouns should in fact be gendered would constitute a fireable offense for me and for Joyent..." That was (imo) the worst part of the blog post. You're comparing death threats from obsessed fans of a platform known for being filled with users of a younger age, to angry backhanded tweets and blog posts from professional software developers. C'mon now.

grannyg00se 13y ago

"the complex dynamic happening here is a major turn-off (Joyent controls the nodejs repo)" Can you clarify what off-putting complex dynamic you're referring to?

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

camus2 13y ago

NodeJS is an idea(and a trademark...) but there is no reason why it couldnt be ported to other envirronments like the JVM for instance. Joyent and a few other businesses own NodeJS development that's a fact,i'm curious as to how they will make money out of it.