TL;DR: A patent and trademark agent and NPM bullied an Open Source Dev, so the Dev deleted his code from NPM as is his right. The internet broke. NPM restored the code against the dev's wishes. Corpos win...as always.
this post was submitted on 31 Jan 2024
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I’d say the bigger issue was people live-linking to the files rather than downloading and using a version controlled copy they can control.
They don't teach about Configuration Management in web-dev bootcamp
They don’t teach about Configuration Management in web-dev bootcamp
Ha! Bullshit like configuration management, memory management, optimizing compilers, all obsolete technology! We don't need that anymore with modern web browsers now that every single computer ever is connected to the Internet, and now that we have AI to write code for us!!! JavaScript is the one true language!
(sarcasm)
I love how it broke React.
“Bullied”? I mean, the open source app the trademarker wanted to replace wasn’t popular either, and I don’t see how the heck “kik” could be related to something for creating templates. Neither do I see it for messaging, but that is a trademark.
In this case, we believe that most users who would come across a kik package, would reasonably expect it to be related to kik.com.
IMO, the dev was the asshole in that case.
Not in my book. They asked him if he would rename his package, he replied sorry but I'm building a project with this name, and they replied that they were going to send lawyers to do takedowns if he would release his project. This would also rub me the wrong way. Also, the dev was already working on the package before the kik company ever came to NPM. Why would he have to give up on the name for his project?
Because not enforcing a trademark means potentially losing the trademark. Not saying that makes it right, IMHO the system just sucks.
For United States trademarks, not necessarily. You don't have to enforce the trademark to keep it; you just have to renew it on time.
The problem with not enforcing the trademark is that it opens the term up to genericization (for example, referring to all types of tissues as Kleenex). Genericization will cause a company to lose the trademark.
I don't think kik was worried about that. It's more likely they were bullying the guy into giving up the package name.
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The dev could claim something like "prior art", or whatever the alternative is for software. Suppose I trademark the name "is-odd" for a company, should NPM now hand me the "is-odd" package name? This would surely break the internet in the same way is an this case.
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Hard disagree. I took much delight in watching the internet collapse when he deleted HIS PROPERTY.
Kik, as in "kickstart". Makes sense for templating.
Still, Kik could have easily named their package "kik-messenger" or something. Would have been much clearer.
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Original article not via pocket: https://qz.com/646467/how-one-programmer-broke-the-internet-by-deleting-a-tiny-piece-of-code
It's the left-pad npm incident, it was a big news back than, it has its own section on wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Npm#Dependency_chain_issues
I always reel in horror when projects have tiny, 'negligible to implement yourself' functions like these as dependencies. See also: is-even 🙄
Edit: is-even has a dependency on is-odd which has a dependency on is-number. 🤦♂️
I think is-odd is intentionally a reference to / satire of leftpad
JavaScript is a dangerous shitshow for this exact reason. Dependencies are a security and stability nightmare.
Eh, I'd say any language that offers a package repository is just as susceptible. I'm neither pro- nor anti- dependency, but I do always try to keep them to an absolute minimum regardless of what environment I'm working in. Sometimes it makes sense to not reinvent the wheel.
Yes, but other languages have exponentially fewer packages that install when you add something, making the attack vector smaller and easier to monitor.
The best way to fix this is for library authors to avoid installing as many sub-dependencies as possible (is-odd, being an obvious example). But that’s a fundamental culture problem.
This is why I only code in Assembly. /jk
At this point it’s just a joke. Is there a npm for console log? I’ll have to check.
And the whole implementation of is-number which is at version 7.0.0:
module.exports = function(num) {
if (typeof num === 'number') {
return num - num === 0;
}
if (typeof num === 'string' && num.trim() !== '') {
return Number.isFinite ? Number.isFinite(+num) : isFinite(+num);
}
return false;
};
The node.js ecosystem has always been madness.
I can't even...
Yes you can, just don't odd
The only part of the story that I'm pissed at is NPM corporation restoring content on their server that they didn't own and published it to millions for profit.
Koçulu removed left pad. It was his code.
Can you imagine the lawsuits if when Disney pulled the license for Avengers on Netflix, Netflix responded with:
"Millions of customers got errors that Marvel Avengers is missing. So we put Avengers back on our servers."
You can't have copyright protection on something so simple.
Depending on the license it is published under, you sure can.
11 lines of code shouldn't be a package.
you should see the "is_odd" package...
it's like, return (num%2)? true:false
People using this deserve that their code breaks. Absolutely ridiculous.
Neither this, nor the leftpad thing, nor this is-even “package” are things I would even think about for a second before just writing it on my own. I wouldn’t even consider those features (let alone packages to depend my code on!) but basic programming.
Problem is when you accidentally pull it in as a transitive dependency...
Yeah :( This also is why such nonsense “breaks the Internet” …
i just don't see how npm is letting this happen...
im going to write an npm module called "true" that just returns true...
… and that has 4 dependencies on it’s own!
at which point do you blame the language for not implementing it natively?
I mean, does any language implement is_odd() natively? Doesn't everyone implement modulus and pretty much assumes that you remember modulus from elementary and can infer that even numbers are those where x % 2 == 0.
at which point do you blame the language for not implementing it natively?
Erm … What more native than number % 2 do you want to have it?
2.is_even()
(I don't know, if this is possible in JS.)
Let’s call the number variable just x, you then have literal math (Euclidean division) if you ignore === instead of = for equals.
x % 2 === 0
This can’t get better or more native than “just math”. This is the whole code you need to detect if a number is even. I wouldn’t even call it “code”.
If you remove whitespaces and ignore the type you end up with x%2==0 which is 6 characters long and a fully valid if clause. No magic involved, no abstraction, no weird function calls on integers …
I see that in modern JS this type of coding is a trend, but you can’t tell me you want to replace 6 characters with an own module or a package. :)
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Isn’t %2 already native?
(BTW this thing failed JavaScript so hard ECMA immediately included it in that year’s standard)
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and that's still too verbose. it should be (num % 2) != 0
I remember it live as it was happening. It was fun.
Nice run on sentence in your title. Great job.
It's 11 lines of trash code too.
The way the function reallocates memory would bring your computer to a crawl on a large string.