Core-js: The future of core-js

[zloirock]

I love raw javascript, engines compatibility and core-js project, but sometimes I want to eat. It's my personal project, in the last year every day I spent several hours for development and maintenance core-js. Instead of help with my work, it just creates problems for me. I lost some orders because I spent my time on core-js instead of them. At the moment, I try to find a full-time job, but all offers completely unrelated this project. In this case, I will not be able to develop and maintain this project as it's required. I don't see anyone else who can develop and maintain it.

Unlike most other projects, core-js development can't be just finished - new specs, new proposals, new engines with new bugs... Finalization of the project means death. And problem for thousands of projects who uses it or repacks (babel-runtime, babel-polyfill, etc) - in many cases core-js hasn't alternatives. I do not want this to happen.

I see only 3 possible way (sure, first two together - the best solution):

• The community can start actively contribute. See more info below.
• Someone can propose me a related job where I will be able to spend enough time for the development and maintenance core-js.
• core-js will die.

Where can you contribute?

• You can... just report known issues in the tracker. Most issues I see in other places and I have no ideas why just not report them here. I don't want to spend my time finding them.
• You can help with writing tests. Most parts of core-js enough well covered by tests, but not completely. And some still not covered, for example, some parts of Promise by ES6 spec. Or, for example, you can help adapt test262 test case.
• You can help check and optimize performance in some places.
• You can help with documentation. I'm not a native English speaker (I think you have understood it after reading of this text :), so it definitely has some bugs, I can miss something else or you can just improve it.
• You can just ask me how you can help more.

[EisenbergEffect]

@zloirock First, I just want to say how grateful I and the entire Aurelia team are for your work. This set of polyfills has made it so much easier for us to build the Aurelia platform and enabled us to help thousands of developers all over the world to build next-generation apps.

As an open source developer of over ten years, I personally understand the situation you are in. For the better part of those years, I've lived on far fewer dollars than almost every developer I met because I chose to devote so much of my time and resources to open source work. For at least five months out of this year, while building Aurelia, I didn't pay myself a salary of any kind. I know of other software developers who have made similar or greater sacrifices as well. I'm saying this to let you know that you aren't alone, that your great work is understood and appreciated and in the hopes that you will see the sacrifice you've made as meaningful and helpful to many people. It's a wonderful contribution to our community and in many ways makes the world a better place.

With all that said, I believe strongly that the worker should be paid just wages. You aren't a slave to your open source or to any of us. You're a hard worker and the product of your long hours has tremendous value. You need to survive financially and in such a way that you can be proud of your work and have some mobility. In all honesty, I don't have a solution for you on the financial side yet. I'm talking with the Aurelia team about your situation and I've got some partners that could be interested. I'm going to reach out and explore some possibilities for you. Please email me privately. You can get my email from my github account. I look forward to hearing from you and let's see how we can put something together that enables both you and your project to thrive.

[zloirock]

For 2 months the situation has not changed. Ok.

[ysmood]

@zloirock I think I would like to take care of the maintenance of promise module. Hope I can help you to shoulder some burden.

PR #170 is my first step towards it, and more test cases will be added.

[steida]

You should add Bitcoin donate like http://sokra.github.io/

[tregusti]

I fully agree, use flattr, gratipay and paypal for instance! Your project have helped my alot so I would pay some for it. And though I am quite new at using this lib, I will create PRs for the problems I find.

[astec]

@zloirock , Angular2 just switched to your lib - https://github.com/angular/angular/commit/66df335998d097fa8fe46dec41f1183737332021

Send CV to Google!

[OleksiiZubko]

@zloirock core-js should not die and I believe the situation will be better, at least after Angular 2 devs. started use it. Thanks for the great lib.

[balupton]

Has anything changed? Been nearly a year now without updates.

I've found open-source development to be exactly the same - packages get millions of downloads a month - but no funding at all. In 2014 I quit my open-source stuff for nearly 2 years because of it. I have some ideas for funding these days, but nothing concrete.

[EisenbergEffect]

I've been doing open source for over ten years and rarely had any sort of funding even though tens of thousands of companies were basing their entire business on products built with my tech. It's a sad situation when even some billion dollar organizations aren't willing to get behind stuff that they depend on to survive.

[Bessonov]

I wrote to @zloirock by email, but I did not receive an answer. Maybe the email ended up in spam. I am looking for very good frontend/backend/fullstack developers for a German company.

[jdalton]

Hi @seyfer!

Plenty of projects output a little message on use (Babel, Webpack, even npm when it's time to update). Your Jenkins fail is a bummer, but this is a minor hiccup that I expect will continue as other projects do the same. Taking your frustration out on an author who does this largely for free, in their own time, is prolly not the best of approaches. This is a good opportunity to help support the project/author instead 🤝 :heart:

[seyfer]

@jdalton well, we are using such way for dependencies installation
OPENCOLLECTIVE_HIDE=true npm ci --unsafe-perm --no-save
which switches off these support us messages for all other deps, except this one.
Was it added somehow in the wrong way?
Support us requests, in my opinion, shall be opportunistic, not annoying. :wink:

I appreciate the author work. But I think that if thousands of projects rely on your work it also involves some degree of responsibility. And despite the personal situation, it is not a reason to create troubles for users.

Btw. my problem with CI was resolved. :sweat_smile:

[seyfer]

@zloirock

I see only 3 possible way (sure, first two together - the best solution):

I see 4th
You can try to find maintainers, give them access to the repository and delegate some responsibilities. I believe many would like to join as it is a good addition to their CV. :smile:

[zloirock]

@seyfer this thread is not a correct place for your issue about the postinstall message. At this moment, you can use ADBLOCK variable, in the next release - DISABLE_OPENCOLLECTIVE, which used in the official Open Collective package.

Sure, your option about maintainers is perfect, but I don't see any candidates -) Anyway, need to update the state of this issue since it was opened a long time ago.