Get rid of postinstall message

[jpike88]

My installation log isn't for advertising space. If you want donations, please do the right thing and promote yourself in places where appropriate. My logs are long enough as it is without this.

The right thing to do is to remove it.

EDIT: An unmaintained fork is available: core-js-without-ads

[nicolo-ribaudo]

You can hide it using the --loglevel silent (or warn, or error) npm option:

npm i --loglevel silent

Package authors have the right to ask users to support their projects. If people are going to be angry about it, they can choose to use a commercial product which doesn't have to ask for funds, instead of a free one.

[jpike88]

It's called donationware and it sets a bad precedent. Loglevel flags shouldn't be the solution to this, it's a misuse of their purpose.

I hope you see where I'm coming from. Please keep it where it belongs, otherwise a high profile package like this will start a trend that nobody wants.

[TomLingham]

@jpike88 it's free software. Once you start paying for it, maybe then you can dictate what is logged during installation. Otherwise, fork it and alias the dependency in your project if you feel so passionately about it.

[jpike88]

Nobody is dictating anything. It's called encouraging good practices, and instead of being so defensive you can consider what I'm saying on its merits. Or you don't have to, it's open source right ;) everyone's free to say what they want

[TomLingham]

I'm not being defensive. Merely encouraging good social practices (to use your own words). It's not unusual for these post install messages to be in packages installed through npm so saying that you are encouraging "good practices" is not founded in anything substantial.

[jpike88]

cssinjs/jss#881
remy/nodemon#1189
styled-components/styled-components#1590
apache/pouchdb#7392

This discussion has played itself out in a few other repos, the trend is almost always the reconsidering of whether it's even an effective marketing tactic, and whether it's fair to the developers who utilise it. The move is then reversed. It is a highly unusual thing to do, and the blowback tends to be strong. Otherwise we'd be seeing every 10th or 20th package doing it (thank god we don't).

If you're not sure what I mean by 'good practices', you can read those links.

[TomLingham]

I appreciate you digging those up, but there are actually a lot of packages that do it

It's up to the maintainer - if it doesn't benefit them like you say, then I'm sure they'll change it in time. Just be glad they aren't mining crypto during the install 😂

[jpike88]

A miner would definitely make this complaint look small... lol

[jackturnbull]

My preference would be to keep the post-install messages clean; I see them as a good place to advertise recent breaking changes and knowing the size of most node_modules folders, if everyone starts doing it then we're in for a rough ride. But with that being said I respect that it's @zloirock's right to use it to ask for a little help. Hell, I'm using hundreds if not thousands of contributors' time so I think I'll survive.

I don't think I'll be the only one here but @jpike88 you've made it really difficult to thumbs up this post with the tone of the message. Nearly every sentence is self-absorbed, outright hostile, or reads as command.

[zloirock]

Dear @jpike88!

Almost 5 years almost every day I spend some hour for maintenance core-js. It's not a library from some lines which I can write and forget about it - it should react on any change in JavaScript standard or proposals, on any new JS engine release, on any significant bug in JS engines. core-js has become the de facto standard of JavaScript standard library features polyfill.

I was working on the project in my spare time. No one paid me for it, more other - I didn't use it actively in my work, I worked on it since I thought that it was required for JavaScript community. No one of browser vendors, TC39, big companies which use core-js helped me. Users started actively contribute to this project only some months ago.

Some previous months I worked almost fulltime on core-js@3 and polyfilling-related Babel features instead of making money as I thought it was important for JavaScript community and planned to find a new fulltime work after release.

2 months ago I started raising funds to core-js maintenance. Current result - 7$ / month on Patreon, 50$ / month on Open Collective. Not seriously, but better than nothing - users use Babel or their frameworks for polyfilling and just don't know that they use core-js indirectly. Not a problem since anyway I didn't think about open source as about a way to earn any serious money.

However, shit happens. Because of one accident, now I have some serious problems for tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars and a real chance to be in prison - doubtful pleasure - interesting, who will maintain core-js in this case? Since previous months I worked on open source, I have not any financial pillow for solving those problems.

After a little discussion, I understood that I can't count to any help from Babel. Nothing to say.

So why not to make this little experiment? I think that some lines in NPM installation log, which can be hidden if it's required, are an acceptable price for using core-js. I don’t think that I’ll be able to get a however significant part of required at this moment money, however, each dollar makes sense. And some more people will know that I am ready to consider job offers.

And after that, someone says that I'm not right because I added a message on postinstall... The right thing for you is somehow supporting core-js instead of creating issues like this.

Initially, I wanted to add a message on postinstall as an experiment for some days, but because of your reaction I see that adding a message on postinstall was the right thing, so I leave it here. Thank you for this issue.

Let this issue be opened a little more time.

[papandreou]

This is rage-inducing. What if everybody did that?

[Anaphase]

I don't mind donation messages at all, but this little message at the end really bugs me:

Also, the author of core-js (https://github.com/zloirock) is looking for a good job -)

Is that really necessary?

[TomLingham]

@papandreou @Anaphase I was going to tap out of this conversation because I'd already made my point, however your entitlement is deafening. "It really bugs me", or "This is rage-inducing" are the faulty reasonings of individuals who are unable to muster even one modicum of empathy.

It sent a few extra lines through your stdout - if that is what keeps you up at night, then you've clearly lost all perspective.

[papandreou]

Whereas ad hominem attacks are signs of...?