Chris Punches <punches.chris@gmail.com> writes:
I do agree that their development communities would shrug at this, but, if every distro drops the nodejs ecosystem from their package repos, the applications leveraging node modules that the users get currently through their package managers -- (most of the notables they aren't getting them from official repos because it's such a flaky set of workarounds) -- will fall into obscurity, and quickly.
Sure, SuperMegaApp3000 in nodejs won't be accessible to users through the package manager (if it ever was, let's be real). That's an environmental stressor for an actor in a system: If there is need for the utility provided, that demand will generate alternatives. If there's not, then those apps, if they want to remain relevant, will end up being rewritten in more sustainable runtimes.
The nodejs developers would quickly realize the importance of these problems they're creating and come up with solutions if the runtime is to survive.
Do you really think that nodejs modules are primarily consumed via the OS' package manager? Because they are not. The majority of the node ecosystem is consumed via npm. npm itself is also not installed via zypper or dnf but is pre-installed inside the container used by the dev or just grabbed directly via `curl $URL | sudo sh`. Do I like this? Not at all. Will anything improve if we remove every nodejs package? Not at all, things will just get worse for users of the distro, while the node ecosystem *will not care*. You're of course free to submit delete requests to Factory, but don't except any support with that.
If all these distros continue to grind their wheels toiling at and around this problem that needs solved upstream it takes the pressure off upstream to solve it.
What we actually need, is a way to ship node modules in a sane way and provide additional value by doing that. Adam's and Ludwig's nodejs bundler does both and is imho a step into the right direction. Cheers, Dan -- Dan Čermák <dcermak@suse.com> Software Engineer Development tools SUSE Software Solutions Germany GmbH Maxfeldstr. 5 90409 Nuremberg Germany (HRB 36809, AG Nürnberg) Managing Director: Felix Imendörffer