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.
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.
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.
