Broadening Node.js Contributions | Hacker News Reader

Broadening Node.js Contributions

joyent.com

60 pointstimf16 comments

Bryan Cantril (the writer of the article) is an interesting and ebullient dude. If you haven't seen him talk take a look: here's his talk on corporate anti-patterns (as referenced in the article) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NhgXQFk9noI

Great! Now if they'd commit to not publicly crucify those contributors over overblown scandals, I might consider giving node.js another look.

Can you point out what you're referring to, please?

http://www.joyent.com/blog/the-power-of-a-pronoun

Funnily, Bryan's the same person who also showed contempt in crucifying one node's largest OSS contributors in public is now seeking to attract more contributors to the same project?

The 2 character pull-request that took down libuv's largest and one of node's largest ever contributors: https://github.com/joyent/libuv/pull/1015

Bryan's public Crucifixion of Ben: http://www.joyent.com/blog/the-power-of-a-pronoun

Ben Noordhuis's Response: https://github.com/joyent/libuv/pull/1015#issuecomment-29568...

and HN Story of his Departure: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6845286

No thanks, I can't see myself ever touching or recommending Joyent's services as a result.

Good luck finding a community of any significant size that hasn't had some drama in the past.

Ruby, Python, and NodeJS have all had their fair share of issues. Even GitHub had a fracas.

Nobody gets a free pass, but mistakes will be made. At what point do you call those problems resolved?

Name me another that's shown this much contempt to a core contributor?

Joyent has never apologized to Ben or thanked him for his years of efforts (despite many from the node community and other contributors having done so).

There's been lots of douchebaggery going on in other language communities. That it hasn't exploded into a giant fiasco is something of a small miracle.

Actually, from what I've seen, the Node.JS community definitely seems more...immature,

I don't deal much with them, but the Perl community definitely seems much more mature.

And I deal more with the Python community, and they've always been decent and welcoming to all.

The whole Joyent-crucifying-Ben fiasco, and the fallout showed that even though they might be adults, and core contributors, they weren't actually very mature, or even seem like particularly nice people.

Maybe that's just how it played out, and behind closed doors, they're super nice people, but it certainly didn't do them any favours posting that inflammatory blog post of theirs.

Your reaction seems just as overblown as theirs was ("They did something rude once, so I hate them forever!"), and "took down" is quite an exaggeration since he's still contributing to libuv.

Like, yes, they were rude to Ben. And Ben was rude to the person submitting that pull request and to Isaac. Bryan was more rude, but it's over and hating Joyent forever for being rude that one time makes no more sense to me than hating Ben forever. Like, if Isaac had talked about stepping down after Ben wrongly chided him, would you have held an eternal grudge against Ben?

Overblown how does it even compare? I've listed a series of links to the major events in chronological order.

It's only a mistake if they recognize it as one, i.e. with a public apology of the same exposure as their original post. They have not done so, or recanted their post, or even recognized Ben's efforts since. Their treatment of contributors is especially relevant given they're now seeking to attract more contributors.

Until then I have no reason to like Joyent or consider using any of their services.

Don't worry, Joyent will be out of business within a couple of years anyway as Google, Amazon, and Microsoft crush them.

How does it compare? Well, the major events were:

- Ben rudely rejected a commit

- Ben rudely reverted a commit and rudely chided Isaac

- Joyent rudely chided Ben

- Ben explained that there had been a misunderstanding and expressed that his feelings were hurt

Although Joyent's post rubbed me the wrong way, I have trouble seeing why you'd hate them forever for being rude to a contributor when you won't hate Ben forever for being rude and flippant toward multiple contributors. I don't think defining Ben by this incident the way Bryan did is reasonable, but I don't think defining Joyent by this incident is any more reasonable. It's one incident in the past, not a trend in either of their cases. People are imperfect.

Ben didn't rudely reject the commit, he rejected a trivial commit to docs as per maintainer guidelines, he explains the thoughts behind his actions in his response: https://github.com/joyent/libuv/pull/1015#issuecomment-29568... As an active contributor he has to deal with hundreds of commits / pull requests / comments / etc. As a result, his actions are instinctive where he actually thought he was following the project's maintainers policy.

Joyent's actions were pre-meditated, they took to their company's blog to publicly crucify him, labelling him an Asshole and that they would've fired him on the spot if he were only working for them (sadly he was in the unfortunate situation where he was only donating his OSS efforts for free). Whilst they were quick to classify this a fireable offense, they stopped short of saying they would no longer be accepting free OSS contributions from him in future.

I can sympathize with Ben's response in that he thought he was doing the right thing in rejecting a trivial change, I can't however sympathize with Joyent's treatment in their public PR crucifixion, instead of what should've happened and dealt with any criticisms of their core contributors privately, and if one should be required, (although it really wasn't necessary) they could've made a joint statement on how future pull-requests like this are now welcomed.

They have yet to recant their post, or admitted any fault or overreaction. Unlike Ben who in hindsight, wouldn't have reverted Isaac's commit.

It's not only about the historic events, it's also about respect and perceived appreciation of valuable OSS contributions which they now seek to attract. AFAICT Joyent is the same company who stands by their post.

"in contrast to the unfortunate situation where he was only donating his OSS efforts for free"

It was stated in the Hacker News discussion that at the time he was working for a competitor, and quit as a result of this harassment.

Which then prompted speculation about sinister motives. Me, I prefer avoiding communities with "corncobs", to use a term from the Antipatterns book.

When the startup I previously worked for was acquired, a Google CLA I had signed while at the startup was the source of much contention between the startup's and acquirer's lawyers, and caused much last minute stress for the startup's CEO.

AIUI, acquirer's lawyers contended the CLA might grant Google leverage over the acquirer's patents.

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