A note about npm cli work status

npm-strike.md

When will npm@6.9.1 be released (and other PRs merged?)

On March 22, npm fired several members of the open source and community team for discussing workplace conditions and other labor organizing activities. As a result, core employee contributors to the npm cli were removed from the project, and others have left in solidarity or put their work on hold.

Multiple claims were filed with the NLRB on this matter. The NLRB has investigated and found sufficient evidence of validity to proceed. The National Labor Relations Act of 1935 protects US employees' right to engage in discussions of workplace concerns without threat of retaliation -- and awareness of the importance of how we treat each other is something I valued so much in collaborating with the cli team. How can we work together if we aren't free to discuss what we need?

It's disappointing for all of us to find the work we were doing interrupted in this way. Our open source community deserves better. I hope at some point soon npm will choose to repair the damage it caused so that work can move forward again. Please remember this was not a choice the open source team made, but a result of the actions of the company's executives.

@zkat just sponsored, thanks for all of the great work. Some of use want to remain 100% Facebook free so yarn isn't an option.

thank you!

@zkat Are you still going to work on tink?

@aparajita check out https://github.com/zkat/sponsorship/blob/latest/updates/2019-06-11.md#a-sneak-peek-of-the-future

Awesome. We need something like tink, although a lot of packages are going to break once package managers stop using a flattened node_modules. There are tons out there that are either purposely or unwittingly relying on a dependency somewhere down the hierarchy to install what should be a direct dependency.

On March 22, npm fired several members of the open source and community team for discussing workplace conditions

That is a massive red flag. The open source community needs to drop npm like a bad habit. This is abusive behavior and if they're willing to do this to their own employees, just imagine what they'll do to us "freeloaders"

@zkat The link is 404, is there a new location for it?

@zkat why don't you join forces with @ceejbot and rescue both the CLI and the registry?

@borekb @camilomontoyau the link is intentionally only available to my subscribers and talks about my plans as far as Ceej's registry goes.

@zkat Ah, thanks, I didn't realize how this works.

@zkat great idea! Sponsored!

@aeschright: So sorry to hear this. Now I know why a once-solidly healthy project seemed to drop off so suddenly. I am pretty furious at the situation…but I don’t want to touch Facebook-infested yarn, either.

@zkat: Thanks for keeping up in work and community. I’m grateful for the hard work you (and the innumerable other contributors) do. I wish someone like you were in charge of the npm company, instead of asshats who think people have no right to discuss their own working conditions. (’Scuse my language. I’m still very angry, having just read this gist.)

❤️ to the core npm devs, countless contributors, and grateful users.

<3 thank you

@aparajita @Zearin I don't want to fork the discussion, but I think important to underline this: Yarn is not a Facebook project. Yarn received contributions from Facebook (and a lot of other companies), but its governance is not and has never been dictated by Facebook (as evidenced by it having its own org on Github, and having been released without patents file long before it was FB's policies). Should they want a feature, they'd have to do the same as anyone else and convince us, core maintainers, that it's worth building and maintaining. Not only for them, but for our users at large.

In fact, since I left Facebook about two months ago the project has thrived without receiving one contribution from anyone working at Facebook. We've welcomed new people to the team, are drawing our own plans, and have complete liberty to steward the project as we see fit (not that it wasn't the case even when the core team was mostly coming from Facebook).

In short, please use npm, tink, pnpm, or whatever fits your business case, but I'd appreciate not to see my project unfairly qualified with terms like "Facebook-infested". Not when our volunteer team does its best every night, every week-end, with little to no funding. Thanks by advance 😊

(I don't think continuing discussing it here is a good idea, since there are more important topics I don't want to hijack, but feel free to ask me more on Twitter and/or Discord and I'll be happy to answer your questions)

@arcanis and yarn team, thank you for all you do on yarn.

@zkat and npm cli team, thank you for your hardwork too.

<3 love the node community.

@arcanis: I understand the concerns, but as you wrote, there are more important topics in this thread like the future of npm, job loss, the JavaScript community, legal/illegal actions, well-being of current employees... Thanks for your understanding, please be respectful!

@arcanis this thread isn't about you, buddy. Why are you like this?

What a shame. Npm seemed like it would have been a great place to make contributions. Not if this is how they treat their labor. Solidarity with those that lost their work.

My apologies for bringing that up, it was neither the place nor time.

Know that for what it's worth I entirely support your efforts. Companies and their workers should have a symbiotic relationship, and being able to trust one another is paramount. I hope your leadership will be able to see it. Best of luck.

Huh, I was wondering why NPM has been broken for so long. Unfortunate.

@arcanis: I don't blame you for wanting to defend a project you've worked so hard on and I appreciate that you did. I use Yarn everywhere I can and I love it. 👍

I wondered why NPM has been down for so long. Unfortunately.