This is an interesting case for the rather strict rules on this site about editorializing post titles. The title of this post is straight from the Github issue, which I believe was submitted by a person for whom English is not their native language.
The title on the Orange Site is ``Webpack Doesn’t Work on Monday (On Windows)’’ which is a bit better, but still awkward, and still editorializing.
I wouldn’t call either possible title editorializing, exactly. But the choice of which one to name the article does implicitly make an argument about what the interesting thing about this bug is - either that it happens in code that checks the real-clock time and therefore only manifests itself at certain real times, or that it happens in code that asks for a donation rather than core functionality of the program, which perhaps makes the bug more egregious.
Is it really more tacky than in a GUI app?
I’m not fond of it, and I wouldn’t do it in my own programs, but you need to keep the project afloat. It has 77 contributors, which is much better than average, but according to github, it’s used by 398000 other project. That means user/contributor ratio is 0.02%.
Most people using it may never know about the donation option unless you show it conspiciously. Even then of 398000, maybe 3980 will donate something a buck or two.
To get a corporate user to donate something or sponsor your project, you need to be very lucky. I’ve been in situations when switching from certain proprietary alternative to my project fixed companies a number of problems and saved them thousands dollars, but when I offered them support at a small fraction of their former licensing costs, they refused because a single developer could not provide an already unrealistic wished for SLA. We have switched to a “pay for binaries” model since then, but for a project like webpack it wouldn’t work.
A donation link in the man pages would be perfect. However, tools have been putting it in their postinstall scripts. This means that whenever you install a project that uses webpack-cli or core-js or another open collective project you get an ad in your install log, no matter how deep in the dependency tree it is. Sometimes it even runs on CI servers, adding ASCII art and donation links to your build logs.
I get that donations would help out the project, and putting ads in the places where the most people see them is probably effective, but it’s annoying and the trend worries me.
imho the only tacky thing is having the advertisement show up based on a day of the week. It doesn’t really matter what the message is so long as it is consistent.
Monday you can fall apart
Tuesday Wednesday break my heart
Oh, Thursday doesn’t even start
It’s Friday I’m in love
This is an interesting case for the rather strict rules on this site about editorializing post titles. The title of this post is straight from the Github issue, which I believe was submitted by a person for whom English is not their native language.
The title on the Orange Site is ``Webpack Doesn’t Work on Monday (On Windows)’’ which is a bit better, but still awkward, and still editorializing.
I wouldn’t call either possible title editorializing, exactly. But the choice of which one to name the article does implicitly make an argument about what the interesting thing about this bug is - either that it happens in code that checks the real-clock time and therefore only manifests itself at certain real times, or that it happens in code that asks for a donation rather than core functionality of the program, which perhaps makes the bug more egregious.
Advertising within your CLI tool is just plain tacky.
Is it really more tacky than in a GUI app? I’m not fond of it, and I wouldn’t do it in my own programs, but you need to keep the project afloat. It has 77 contributors, which is much better than average, but according to github, it’s used by 398000 other project. That means user/contributor ratio is 0.02%.
Most people using it may never know about the donation option unless you show it conspiciously. Even then of 398000, maybe 3980 will donate something a buck or two.
To get a corporate user to donate something or sponsor your project, you need to be very lucky. I’ve been in situations when switching from certain proprietary alternative to my project fixed companies a number of problems and saved them thousands dollars, but when I offered them support at a small fraction of their former licensing costs, they refused because a single developer could not provide an already unrealistic wished for SLA. We have switched to a “pay for binaries” model since then, but for a project like webpack it wouldn’t work.
I don’t see a problem with putting a donation link in
--helpor the manual or something.A donation link in the man pages would be perfect. However, tools have been putting it in their postinstall scripts. This means that whenever you install a project that uses webpack-cli or core-js or another open collective project you get an ad in your install log, no matter how deep in the dependency tree it is. Sometimes it even runs on CI servers, adding ASCII art and donation links to your build logs.
I get that donations would help out the project, and putting ads in the places where the most people see them is probably effective, but it’s annoying and the trend worries me.
imho the only tacky thing is having the advertisement show up based on a day of the week. It doesn’t really matter what the message is so long as it is consistent.