The Dark Side of Open Source // What really happened to Faker.js?

Yesterday, one of my favorite open-source packages, Faker.js, was abruptly taken down from GitHub. Its readme simply said “What really happened to Aaron Swartz?”. Let’s take a look at why Open Source Software can be a bad deal for many independent developers.

#dev #opensource #history

🔗 Resources

https://github.com/marak/Faker.js/
http://docs.jstor.org/jstor-statement-misuse-incident-and-criminal-case.html
https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/the-brilliant-life-and-tragic-death-of-aaron-swartz-177191/
https://nypost.com/2018/01/27/these-hackers-suicides-are-eerily-similar/

📚 Chapters

00:00 Faker.js Disappeared
00:29 What happened to Aaron Swartz?
02:03 Down the rabbit hole
02:35 The Problem with Open Source

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🎨 My Editor Settings

- Atom One Dark
- vscode-icons
- Fira Code Font

🔖 Topics Covered

- Why Faker.js disappeared
- The Aaron Swartz story
- Why was Aaron Swartz arrested?
- What did Aaron Swartz create?
- Open Source Pitfalls
- Problems with Open Source