Posts by lou@jawns.club
 (DIR) Post #ATL9gtPHPeqcf89rZQ by lou@jawns.club
       2023-03-06T01:05:44Z
       
       0 likes, 1 repeats
       
       I read something like this and it's heartbreaking.This is literally the guy in that XKCD comic that maintains a tiny piece at the bottom of a huge JavaScript stack that would fall over if he just stopped maintaining his open source library for free one day.And because he's not a good self-promoter, whenever he tries to ask for money all he gets is hate and vitriol in response.Open source, man. I love it, but the tech industry sucks.https://github.com/zloirock/core-js/blob/master/docs/2023-02-14-so-whats-next.md
       
 (DIR) Post #ATMCdA12DHda2JgoTI by lou@jawns.club
       2023-03-06T17:58:41Z
       
       0 likes, 0 repeats
       
       To folks in my mentions pointing out (1) he's Russian, there's administrative barriers to paying him (2) he's Russian and has controversial/neutral takes on the war (3) he's gotta be a bad person because of the car accident and jail time, right? -- as reasons why people don't contribute:You might have a rationale for not liking the person, it doesn't change the fact that software developers and companies are happy using his software *anyway*.
       
 (DIR) Post #ATMCdBkRlvYbPRwatU by lou@jawns.club
       2023-03-06T18:04:29Z
       
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       To me, this individual and project is just illustrative of a larger pattern in open source in general.Users are happy to use things that are free. Users generally feel "everyone else" will take care of maintenance or sustainability.They are not, as a rule, making time to personally investigate maintainers to see if they're worthy of support or compensation. They just borrow the code and move on.
       
 (DIR) Post #ATMCdDLLqCfgMCDa3U by lou@jawns.club
       2023-03-06T18:07:30Z
       
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       If you end up not liking the person, and conclude "well, that's why this person isn't being funded!" That's a post-hoc rationalization.I think it's as likely that if the maintainer were to step back and hand control to someone else, the funding issues will remain the same.Besides the administrative barrier of being in Russia. That part you could solve. You would still need a person good at fundraising and making partnerships. (Lack of this ability is not a character flaw.)