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Programming

GitHub Acquires npm (github.blog) 34

Nat Friedman: npm is a critical part of the JavaScript world. The work of the npm team over the last 10 years, and the contributions of hundreds of thousands of open source developers and maintainers, have made npm home to over 1.3 million packages with 75 billion downloads a month. Together, they've helped JavaScript become the largest developer ecosystem in the world. We at GitHub are honored to be part of the next chapter of npm's story and to help npm continue to scale to meet the needs of the fast-growing JavaScript community.
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GitHub Acquires npm

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  • Funny (Score:5, Funny)

    by Toonol ( 1057698 ) on Monday March 16, 2020 @12:24PM (#59836280)
    And Microsoft owns GitHub, so they're the ones really acquiring npm. Probably having GitHub purchase it in order to manage perceptions.

    Not really that big of an issue, though. Microsoft of today is a lot different than MS of 15 years ago. Now, I'm thinking "thank God Google didn't buy it."
    • Re:Funny (Score:4, Insightful)

      by phantomfive ( 622387 ) on Monday March 16, 2020 @12:34PM (#59836362) Journal

      And Microsoft owns GitHub, so they're the ones really acquiring npm.

      Good, maybe they'll use it to replace that Nuget nonsense popular in the MS world.

      • Hmm just e question: what is wrong nuget?
        • by Bengie ( 1121981 )
          My guess is they're conflating nuget with the library versioning hell that Visual Studio and .Net has.
      • by jonwil ( 467024 )

        If anything, vcpkg (an excellent tool for working with open source libraries and stuff in an MS environment) would be a better way to replace Nuget...

    • by darkain ( 749283 )

      Microsoft has been doing good on public image... but as of the past couple months, I'm starting to get weary of them again. Their work on WSL2 is great n all, better Linux application integration and better performance. But at what cost? WSL2 requires the usage of Microsoft's Hyper-V hypervisor, which prevents literally any other hypervisor from running on the same system. This means you either get WSL2, or you get VMWare, you cannot have both. They're doing these "make the community happy" styles of shovin

      • I've only run Windows inside a VM for years now.

        I have one graphics program (Xara) that only runs under Windows, and I seldom run anything else in that environment.
      • Look, the whole point of WSL2 is to let people run a fully-functional Linux environment without mucking around with VM systems or dual-booting. If you're going to set up VMware, just create a virtual machine and install Linux on that. You are not the target audience.
    • by Trogre ( 513942 )

      Not really that big of an issue, though. Microsoft of today is a lot different than MS of 15 years ago.

      (insert Qui-Gon Jinn meme photo)
      "I wish that were so"

    • by sad_ ( 7868 )

      doesn't matter one bit who acquires it, it is open source. they do something most people don't like and *poof* a fork happens that will take away the majority of users in a very short time.

  • Microsoft-Github embrace extending javascript is really bad. The fact that there is a central point of failure in the javascript world is bad enough without MS.
    • by xack ( 5304745 )
      And this goes in hand with the WSL changes announced earlier today. Microsoft has embraced Javascript before in the form of "jscript" in the 90s and its more powerful extensions compared to Netscape's version is why IE dominated for so long until legacy code bit them in the ass with IE6 and now IE11. Microsoft will now integrate npm within Visual Studio and Windows APIs and their embrace-extensions of Blink and WSL will mean that "open source" at Microsoft will be an "open pit" where developers will be chuc
    • by HiThere ( 15173 )

      What license is it under? Does it cover patents as well as copyrights?

      Forking may not be possible. Open Source isn't Free Software, and not even all Free Software licenses deal properly with patents.

  • by meist3r ( 1061628 ) on Monday March 16, 2020 @12:27PM (#59836302)
    The headline is bad. GitHub is part of Microsoft. This is not GitHub doing a logical lateral expansion in the open source space. This is Microsoft digging it's claws deeper to attain more control over the open source community. Let's not fool ourselves here. This is bad for everybody but the people at Microsoft making money off it.
    • by phantomfive ( 622387 ) on Monday March 16, 2020 @12:36PM (#59836384) Journal
      It's not that bad. NPM was run by a money-grubbing CEO who didn't care about security or quality.

      Github (for now) still cares about things like security. They audit your public repositories for software vulnerabilities, for example. They have checks to make sure you're not accidentally committing your private email to a public repository.

      Given all that, it wouldn't be surprising to see real improvements in NPM, at least for the short-term.
      • It's not that bad. NPM was run by a money-grubbing CEO who didn't care about security or quality.

        Yeah, good thing Microsoft doesn't have one of those.

        Github (for now) still cares about things like security. They audit your public repositories for software vulnerabilities, for example. They have checks to make sure you're not accidentally committing your private email to a public repository.

        Security isn't the problem. Microsoft has a track record of embrace-extending projects to death. Even ones they did not intend to extinguish.

        Given all that, it wouldn't be surprising to see real improvements in NPM, at least for the short-term.

        In the long term, RIP npm. Which might not be a bad thing. npm is a mess.

    • by Dog-Cow ( 21281 )

      I sincerely hope you find the time to push a pickaxe up your nose in the immediate future. You have severe neural defects, and a pickaxe is your only hope.

  • I tried to use the 'node.js' ecosystem once. npm filled my hard drive with recursive requirements.

    npm tis a silly place.

    There are some neat projects I'd like to run, but am waiting on clones in any other language.

  • Does this mean Microsoft acquired NPM, since microsoft own github?
  • by BAReFO0t ( 6240524 ) on Monday March 16, 2020 @12:43PM (#59836440)

    Never forget that.

    Oh well. I've got Haskell and Python and Godot Engine and Blender and KDEnlive and Krita and Gimp and PostgreSQL and my own servers with my semi-custom distribution.

    What do I care of cancer merges with cancer.

    If anyone demands a web interface and I don't have the option of laughing at him, I'll export to WebAssembly and run it with "Legacy HTML5 OS interface, please migrate to a real platform" above it, in big red letters. At a real high price, or with real dangerous ads. ;)

    • by Dog-Cow ( 21281 )

      Please kill yourself in a painful way. The torment you obviously live with on a day-to-day basis should be ended soonest.

    • by tepples ( 727027 )

      If anyone demands a web interface and I don't have the option of laughing at him, I'll export to WebAssembly and run it with "Legacy HTML5 OS interface, please migrate to a real platform" above it, in big red letters.

      To which pocket computer platform do you recommend that the general public migrate? iOS? Android?

  • Yippee, monopoly FTW!

  • I've read that headline as "github acquires porn" and each time my response has been, "It was only a matter of time..."

  • "Resistance is futile." - Microsoft

If all else fails, lower your standards.

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