If you are not familiar with Marak on GitHub, you might be familiar with some of their work, most notably Faker.js which is a Node.js package for generating fake data.
Well, Marak is taking a stand and honestly, it’s commendable and I 100% support it. In a Github issue on the Faker repository titled No more free work from Marak – Pay Me or Fork This, while it might appear that this was prompted by a Fortune 500 company asking for things, the following Tweet might provide some insight.
I lost all my stuff in an apartment fire and am barely staying unhomeless. Lost access to most of my accounts. All precious metal is missing. If anyone could bless paypal@marak.com with a little cash it would help me from freezing on the street. lol.
— marak.com (@marak) October 25, 2020
Sadly, it appears Marak lost everything in an apartment fire as well as access to accounts. Understandably, pouring your own free time into a free library that large companies are using to save in development costs, it’s salt being rubbed into your eyes.
There has been a data leak somewhere in FAANG and I can tell you with certainty billions of dollars are being made off our work and there are multi-millionaires literally laughing at us. #robotstrike cc @substack pic.twitter.com/GUH4ymDWxM
— marak.com (@marak) November 9, 2020
It might be the headspace they are in right now, but there is a larger point here. For years large profitable companies have been operating and built on the backs of open source, many giving nothing back.
For a good laugh, check out the Facebook Jest repository, they are asking for donations. Facebook, a company worths tens of billions is asking for donations on their own open-source project, if that isn’t messed up, then what is?
Open source is broken and nobody seems to have the solution.