The above public name "Shiburo" is a spare number for me, in order to prevent the loss of the big one day, I usually send about three articles of my thinking, reading notes, cognitive perception and other articles a week to lead everyone to explore the road of spiritual and financial freedom.
Hello everyone, I'm the principal.
A big thing that has happened in the open source community recently caused a stir in the IT community is that faker .js the author of the open source project deleted all the code for the project.
01
Here's the thing
As a well-known nodejs tool library, the Faker .js was completed by author Marak over a decade, and the Faker .js can make many different types of fake data for development and debugging. The results of his work have created a lot of value for some big companies (including Google), but the big companies have not paid him a penny for it.
Marak tweeted on October 25, 2020, claiming that she had lost everything in an apartment fire and was nearly homeless.
Although this move received enthusiastic donations from many netizens, Marak chose to delete all the code in the end.
Maybe Marak has suffered a lot of losses since the fire, and he is angry at the thought that his open source project is so popular, but it can't bring me any benefits. In fact, before deleting, Marak also had a series of mysterious operations, that is, injecting all kinds of irrelevant code into his own open source projects, and even messing with his own open source projects, resulting in developers who use the latest version of faker .js being affected, and even running out of bugs. In the end, everyone found that as long as you go back to the previous version, there is no problem.
Of course, in the end, I couldn't go back to the previous version, because Marak eventually deleted all the code for the library in one fell swoop.
02
Each has its own opinion
For a while, this matter caused extensive discussion among everyone. Some developers in the open source community expressed understanding, while others directly "spit out the fragrance".
VessOnSecurity, an information security expert, calls this behavior "irresponsible" and that if you have a problem with your business using your free code for free, don't publish it. By disrupting your own project that is widely used by developers, you are hurting not only the big business, but all the people who are using it.
But others argue that publishing code into their own libraries is not responsible for anything. If you disagree with me, then please read the actual legal provisions in the license, which do not give any guarantees. If it's irresponsible, so what, they don't need to be responsible.
There are rules on open source protocols: once there is a problem with an open source project, it is the user who is responsible, not the open source.
Some netizens also said: faker.js the author's reaction to destroying their own packages, which also happens to show how many enterprise developers believe that they are morally entitled to use the unpaid labor of open source developers without making any return.
What do you think about this? In fact, you can talk about your own views.
03
Open source is the self-media of technical people
Some people say: open source is the self-media of technical people.
To put it simply: a programmer building an open source project by himself is equivalent to showing his technical ability, building his own technical influence, and even if the open source author does not get any monetary remuneration through the open source project, it brings him fame and status.
Therefore, many people are happy to open source the purpose is to hope that through open source, it is conducive to enhancing their reputation and allowing themselves to find better jobs.
However, faker .js open source authors to maintain the project for decades, with tens of thousands of stars, hundreds of millions of downloads and uses, Marak does not seem to benefit from this, and did not get more paid, if Marak now has a good job, not to be ashamed to delete the library, right?
In fact, the world is so cruel, it is like some people have succeeded in doing self-media, made money, and some people do have the strength to do self-media, silently writing hundreds of valuable articles, and still can't make money, so having strength does not necessarily mean that they can use it to make money.
Because in the business world, it is not possible to make money with technology, you must have business thinking.
In fact, in my opinion, the open source world of technical people is more like the behavior of engaging in their own hobbies after satisfying their own lives. If a person can't satisfy his stomach under the premise that he is not able to do so, he is destined to go far by doing open source. The premise of generating electricity with love is that you have to have enough electricity, otherwise, you see, why are so many open source projects ruined? Why hasn't it been maintained over time?
Most open source people still don't make enough money, so that they have to concentrate on making money and don't have time to maintain open source projects.
Purely using feelings to engage in open source is unrealistic and not long-term.
Most of the hungry open source authors actually have their own other purposes.
Regarding open source, I saw the article of the Half Buddha Immortal yesterday, which can be described as a very deep thinking.
04
Open source is digging its own grave
Teacher Half Buddha used a very long article to discuss his views on open source for programmers, I will not repeat it, I will summarize it.
The point of view of the half-Buddha teacher's article is actually two points:
Open source creates a bigger cake for programmers, but open sourcers do not share the cake;
Open source projects lower the threshold for programmers, allowing more people to come in and divide the cake, so that they are competed for, like digging their own graves.
Let me briefly say: open source does bring great value to the entire industry, because the existence of open source makes the entire Internet development more efficient and more convenient, so that the Internet industry cake is getting bigger and bigger, but the whole industry is bigger and bigger, but it is not distributed to the open source at the same time, but the existence of open source, so that the development becomes more simple, many complex effects, many complex projects have ready-made open source libraries, everyone can directly cite it, and there is no need to use their own brains, convenient and efficient, As a result, the programmer industry has more and more thresholds, attracting more people to divide the cake, but let their cake be divided less and less.
Including large manufacturers like Google, they are also using many open source projects, and while it is convenient for themselves, they have harvested a huge market cake, but they have not given any benefits to open sourcers.
This will make the open source very depressed, I open source the project, you take it to make money, you white prostitute, but I am still hungry.
From a business perspective, you look at companies that aren't all building moats for themselves, technology monopolies, knowledge monopolies, patents that require royalties, books that have royalties. In other words: technology has a monopoly, knowledge has copyright, and everyone is making money from monopoly and copyright.
Programmers, on the other hand, break monopolies when they open source technology, but they don't make money.
Half Buddha said:
What does a programmer's code look like? In fact, like software, like games, as long as there is a source file, pirated copy at will, everyone can use. Therefore, those paid software and games, like anti-theft protection of intellectual property rights, are too low and too low in terms of dissemination costs and application costs. And programmers' code is open source, the same nature, but they are eager to give it to the world for free, at this time, no one has the cost of payment. The premise of payment is either to give money to have a good service. Either there is a price for not giving money. And [open source] is just a good two-
This statement is indeed very reasonable at first glance.
This question is indeed worth pondering, and open source may be becoming the pain of open sourcers.
I want to ask you: Will you pay for open source? What the? If you pay for it, it is not called open source?
05
How to make decent money for open sourcers?
In fact, I am also thinking, open source is good for everyone, in fact, open source is to create a bigger cake, is in the positive and positive game, not that open source can not create greater value, nor that the cake is fixed, you share more, I must share less.
When everyone is making a big cake, although there are more people pouring in, but the cake is also getting bigger, according to the reason, people with better technology, in fact, the cake is not necessarily getting smaller.
How do you make open source authors make decent money without affecting open source?
I saw that on Weibo@Easy the big god made a few attentions, and some of them were quite good.
I feel that crowdfunding may not be very reliable, after all, users do not know what will happen to the project? Crowdfunding first, in case the project is unreliable, a bit of a waste of time, and maybe the developers are in a hurry to use the project, and so open source, time may take a while, can't wait ah.
In fact, the first point is quite reliable, open source code, service charges. Just like many software today, the basic version is free and the premium features are charged.
For example: I open source the code, you have the ability, you download the open source code yourself, to reference, may waste time and energy. However, I provide more convenient services on this basis, such as: direct online references, more services, video tutorials, code explanations, and so on.
In fact, I'm thinking about a question: Can we get the wool out of the pigs without destroying open source? That is: I am free and open source to all developers, but developers can pay money, I can make money through other third parties?
You see, like Faker.js tens of thousands of stars, hundreds of millions of downloads and uses, the platform can provide advertising space under open source projects? So that open sourcers can earn advertisers money, in fact, valuable, good open source projects, the daily pageviews are quite large.
Is it the official platform of GitHub, from a business point of view, the entire GitHub platform can receive ads? The advertising that receives, the money earned, can be divided into advertisements for open sourcers according to the daily views of the open source project? After all, GitHub is the largest open source community in the world, and it has to be used by at least millions of people every day.
You see that almost all of the current content platforms do this, content creators create and share on the platform, users watch for free, the platform receives advertising to create revenue, and then take out a part to share the creators.
GitHub can actually do the same.
What do you think about this?