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The economics of package management

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C J Silverio @ceejbot

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you are in this story

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a story about money

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a story about power

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remember Yahoo? ypm was its package manager

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JSConfEU 2009 node.js announced

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early node had package managers plural

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one got official status

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Joyent bought node

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Joyent did not buy node's package manager

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open-source doesn't mean open ownership or control

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node grows through 2013

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success is a catastrophe you need to survive

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the package registry is centralized

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centralization has advantages

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centralization has been the trend

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centralization of costs

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servers cost money who pays for them?

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donations work when you're small

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success is expensive (for centralized services)

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npm needed money

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this is not a novel problem

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founding a company was a novel choice

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the node project decided this was fine

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you decided this was fine

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not everybody thought it was fine

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money changes everything

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I decided this was fine

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I was employee number two

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those large numbers sure are large

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let's talk about money

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open source generates a lot of value

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capitalism does not reward open source authors

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most of us give away source code not expecting money

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open source vs free software

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capitalism loves open source

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one person in this story didn't give his stuff away

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javascript's commons

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commons: the resources available to everybody

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the language spec

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all our shared code

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our common registry of shared code is owned by a private company

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Ryan Dahl was here again last year

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It’s unfortunate that there is a centralized (privately controlled even) repository for modules. --Ryan Dahl

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what are the consequences of private control?

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no input into registry policies

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no input into registry features

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the registry is what matters not the clients

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the management of our commons is opaque to us

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there is no trust without accountability

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you had no way to hold me accountable

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so is npm evil? mu. ask a different question.

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npm is a financial instrument

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financial instruments are monetary contracts

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npm Inc is a means for turning some money into more money

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companies don’t love you not even ones that make things you like

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npm does not love you

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nobody believes it anymore

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how did the fall happen?

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It's 2018. Packages flow like water.

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packages cost money even if you're not paying for them

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VCs want to go big or go home

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npm is obligated to its owners not us

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make money or raise money by telling a story about spending money to make money in some kind of money-ception. you can't fool me; it's money all the way down

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they hired a CEO who made some, um, interesting moves

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the centralized registry is expensive

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the situation today is uneasy & probably short-lived

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this was not the only option

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what are we going to do about it?

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do nothing?

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imagine npm run by a non-benevolent entity

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maybe we'll be saved by some large company

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I agree with Ryan Dahl

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do you think that's impossible?

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I believe in giving source code away

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Chris Dickinson @isntitvacant & I have an announcement

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entropic: a federated package manager https://www.entropic.dev

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Apache 2.0 licensed entirely open source (sorry RMS)

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new cli & new api decentralized: many registries

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no, don't use entropic yet

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but we do want your help github/entropic-dev

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entropic's goals

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first, prove we have power

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second, share our expertise

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third, promote federation

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take back the commons

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go do something amazing

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❤ from ceej & chris