I agree, but I’d love to be able to choose. Sometimes the “monolithic” approach is the way to go.
Is Meteor going to be a platform or become soon just a framework?
This is a very good question and I think that a clear vision shared with us by MDG CTO will be very appreciated – as I suggested in a previous comment:
It is simple NPM includes packages that will not work with Meteor. A Meteor package may contain many hint packages inside. Meteor system needs to resolve conflicts among packages. By using meteor add you give developer a certified package that will work on Meteor.
@debergalis When I got a reply from MDG, I was told that I needed at least 6 years of experience (I have more) with a reputable company?
I see your point. Although meteor add doesn’t necessary give you a working package (other view layer, other meteor version, other database). But agreed, it does give a better guarantee then just NPM, at a cost of less packages and packages being out of date compared to their NPM equivalent.
The point is that NPM will give you many packages that WILL work. That is for me way more important than packages that won’t work. If we keep to a standard, like a meteor- prefix, we can still find them. Just like gulp- or react- prefixes.
I’ve been a node developer for years and can’t wait to have all the great node tools and packages available in meteor. All the wrapper packages for things like moment are no longer required.
Instead of meteor-prefix I prefer to meteor add npm:package and you can use npm install -g for utility tools in meteor.
can we not have something like this ? http://react-components.com/ but catered for meteor ? But that will be like atmosphere again right ? Maybe a prefix will solve it. After all the goal is to take advantage of NPM’s current repo right ?
I like your idea. React-Components.com gets data from Npm, there is one keyword (‘react-component’) which should be placed in package.json and that’s it. MDG could do the same with Meteor packages (under Atmospherejs.com domain), but I think we also need core (official) Meteor parts in Npm 
Because I can’t imagine which Npm package will be usable only in Meteor. I can think of some complex modules, with some Meteor core dependencies. But standard UI components based on React don’t need special Meteor labels on Npm Even if Blaze, Tracker etc. could be separated Npm packages they also don’t need special Meteor labels because they could be used whithout Meteor? That’s how I undersatand it.
Check this out - https://react.parts/web. Now it is even better - https://js.coach.
A Meteor filter would be great there.
wow, js.coach is a really nice project!! Thanks for sharing. I didn’t know about it.
But I wonder why there isn’t my component and I have ‘react-component’ keyword
By the way, I reckon as far as forking goes, there are at least two successful industry specific fork.
Second one is for meteor on ARM devices. So we are already seeing two mature industry specific forks at least. One for medical apps and other being ARM fork. And for those who do not want to live on the cutting edge, the well tested clinical fork may be a good option for them.