Published today, CJ Silverio gave a talk at the recent JSConf EU (with an amazing video turn around time) about the history of npm, and options for the future.
Silverio (also known, and I’ll now refer to as, ceej) discusses the history and the current controversies of npm, JavaScript’s package manager. I’ve seen a lot of talks, and this one is very interesting to watch for the full context of how npm got to now, and includes great quotes such as “unfortunately, as you probably know, capitalism.”
Ceej notes that centralization and private control have been a core component of the current debacle the JS community finds itself in — and rather than doing nothing, ceej and Chris Dickinson have started a federated package manager, Entropic.
This is going to be super interesting to see how this community (JS) tackles this problem (VC-funded company owns community commons, community is Not Cool With This Anymore). As well, I very much enjoyed a person in the front’s anticipation of the announcement, so much so that I made a gif:
I also love any time someone’s mission is “promote federation,” so that sounds pretty rad too.