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Joyent Moves to Establish Node.js Foundation
- PLenz 12y agoI guess io.js forced their hand.
- bhouston 12y agoI think this is what IO.js wanted right? What were their other demands? It would be cool to see Node.JS and IO.js unified again and moving quickly forward. (I'm self interested because we essentially bet our company on Node/IO.)
- warfangle 12y agoWell, 0.12 has finally been released (after what, two years?) - so there's that.
- Thaxll 12y agoYou bet your company on a single product that is 5 years old? :/
- wereHamster 12y agoUnlikely to happen. NodeJS has gone the enterprise way, which is to say that from now on it'll only receive bug/security fixes. It'll stay at the v8 version it is at today, so no new JavaScript features will be added to it (ie. no ES6/7). That's fine, apparently some people prefer that. Everybody else can switch to io.js and enjoy regular updates.
- nailer 12y ago> What were their other demands? The trademarks should be given to the foundation, like they are with, say Python and the Python Software Foundation.
- WalterSear 12y agoI don't think so. Io.js isn't a hand forcing - it's a horse bolting. Joyent's hand has been 'forced' to shut the barn door.
- gangstead 12y agoHopefully they'll spoon io.js back into the node fold.
- tapsboy 12y agoI would rather like to see them continue operating like "be different, but together" so as to give a choice to users to either use the most cutting edge APIs or more stabler versions. Node.js could be like RHEL/Ubuntu LTS, where as IO.js could be like Fedora/Ubuntu Latest.
- kbody 12y agoExactly, I recently heard the nodeup podcast where it was said that io.js is beta and don't expect rc-1 or beta tag, just plain semver, but said that eventually both forks should unite again. That plus update-on-release V8s are incompatible with Joyent's "enterprise grade tested" releases. I like the two different ideas living together. A bit like: - Node.js: LTS - X: Public release - io.js: Beta/Canary
- johnbellone 12y agoThe only way that this will realistically work is if it falls under a single project. But hopefully the formation of this foundation will lead to a cohesive platform. Its fine if a small team or single developer runs a canary setup; at larger scale development it becomes very difficult to coordinate when its right to run LTS versus not. You'll always default to running what's on production.
- gangstead 12y agoThat's what's happened with Scala. Official Typesafe Scala is for enterprises and the fork by Typelevel is for faster development and experimentation, with a goal of contributing the things that work out back to main Scala (if Typesafe accepts the pull request).
- kbody 12y ago
- yessed 12y agoTranslation: io.js is what people want and Joyent feels threatened that they're not in control. So, they're making noise and dropping names to try to reinspire confidence, without actually promising anything. Joyent doesn't trade, but if they did they'd be losing a few percentage points today.
- hayd 12y agoand they say all this without mentioning io.js...
- chucksmart 12y agoBetamax is technically better than VHS.
- _greim_ 12y agoIt baffles me how little they acknowledge io.js in their public communication. Node is a weirdly paradoxical community composed of a small, really smart core surrounded by a vast but shallow sea of lip service and hype. With this fork io.js has won pretty much all the mindshare of the small core, whereas Joyent is left with the hype, which is a house of cards waiting to fall. They ought to be chumming up to the really smart core if they don't want to fade into complete irrelevance soon.
- forthefuture 12y agoIf anything it feels like io.js might make it out alive if Node turns into something akin to jQuery.
- mwcampbell 12y agoCan you explain the comparison to jQuery? I wasn't aware that jQuery was dead.
- richmarr 12y ago
- bhouston 12y agoWeird that Google isn't a founding member being that V8 is their creation. But I guess the reasoning is that Node isn't used internally at Google as they favor Go for server side code.
- kbody 12y ago(A bit) off-topic, but imagine if Google is working on a from-scratch brand new javascript runtime engine.
- nailer 12y agov8 master (what's in iojs and Chrome) is a new JavaScript runtime engine. It's a pretty fast moving project. If you mean a JS replacement, they unveiled Dart in 2011 and it's not particularly popular.
- pjmlp 12y agoNo, I guess s/he means SoundScript http://www.2ality.com/2015/02/soundscript.html?m=1 http://www.2ality.com/2015/02/soundscript.html?m=1
- kbody 12y agoYeap
- jaredmcateer 12y agoLol can't wait for the next iteration 'use strickest;' then what? 'use strickester;'?
- woah 12y agoWould you prefer a Python scenario?
- Touche 12y agoI'm pretty sure Google favors Java and C++ above all else. I could be wrong but I don't think Go has taken off inside Google.
- coldtea 12y agoToo little, too late.
- bdcravens 12y agoIs it? How many companies have moved off of node onto io.js? I don't mean an oft repeated list, but the hundreds and thousands of apps currently running on > node 12
- honksillet 12y agoGive them a chance. They haven't outline their policy on gender neutral pronouns yet.
- lordbusiness 12y agoIt certainly looks like both parties have desires to reunite with a new understanding of what it means to govern Node. https://medium.com/@iojs/io-js-and-a-node-js-foundation-4e14699fb7be https://medium.com/@iojs/io-js-and-a-node-js-foundation-4e14... This would be my wish.
- WalterSear 12y agoThe wording there was so polite and inspecific, and the issues at hand so long in the tooth, I seriously doubt it. That ship sailed long ago.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- serve_yay 12y agoHey, there's an idea! I wonder if anyone ever proposed this to Joyent... over and over and over again.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- angersock 12y agoSome interesting things. Note that nowhere do they mention io.js--that's just kind of classy, right? Second, their tone seems aimed at reassuring senior-level folks that might have heard murmurs of dissent from underlings about node--this release doesn't feel like it's targeted to developers at all. Lastly, notice Microsoft being on board. I do wonder if they'll push for movement off of V8 and onto a better-documented, better-maintained platform.
- mwcampbell 12y agoThis move surprises me, because Bryan Cantrill doesn't seem to like governance and foundations for open-source projects. I wonder if he was overruled on this.
- filereaper 12y agoI'm interested in Bryan's view on this as well. He's given talks on open-source governance in the past. This is the closest entry I could find on his blog regarding node.js and its governance: http://dtrace.org/blogs/bmc/2014/06/11/broadening-nodejs/ http://dtrace.org/blogs/bmc/2014/06/11/broadening-nodejs/
- bcantrill 12y agoThat's a very fair question. When I first presented my corporate open source anti-patterns talk at FISL in 2012[1][2], I closed by saying that I was certain that we (Joyent) were making mistakes, and that they would have to come back in 2022 to hear what they were. Suffice it to say that after the developments of the last year -- which include not just the io.js fork but also us open sourcing our entire stack[3] -- I'm really looking forward to doing that update, and hope to do it much earlier than 2022. ;) To answer your question: no, I was not overruled -- it's been clear to me for quite some time that node.js would be best served by a foundation. That said, getting the mechanics of that foundation established has taking (is taking) a long time (and, it must be said, involves a lot of hard, thankless work from a lot of people). Foundations might feel "easy", but they aren't: 501(c)(3) organizations are highly regulated entities that require not just a lot of groundwork and forethought but extensive maintenance. Fortunately, we have made great progress (and we have built a terrific collection of founding members), and we are getting the node.js community what it needs: a foundation that can assure the consensus-driven advancement of the technology, in perpetuity. [1] http://www.slideshare.net/bcantrill/corporate-open-source-antipatterns http://www.slideshare.net/bcantrill/corporate-open-source-an... [2] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NhgXQFk9noI http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NhgXQFk9noI [3] https://www.joyent.com/blog/sdc-and-manta-are-now-open-source https://www.joyent.com/blog/sdc-and-manta-are-now-open-sourc...
- mr1996 12y ago
- RRRA 12y agoWhat if Hitler finds out about io.js? ;P https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1IOukA10QeQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1IOukA10QeQ
- jessaustin 12y agoThat's epic. We do all the hard work of fending off the hipsters with their "pull requests".
- angersock 12y agoIt's pretty great...at the same time, some of the points are pretty fair--especially about the enterprise customers. "The enterprise begged us to slow down the rate of change and we obliged!" "Try not to raise your voice or Walmart might hear you..." "Walmart was never going to be a big buyer, they're as cheap as their stores!" I really hope that somebody at Joyent gets catharsis from watching this.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- aravan 12y agoThis is funny ever..thanks for posting
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- BinaryIdiot 12y agonode.js and io.js really need to merge or one has to die. I can't see this turning out well unless one or the other happens. io.js is trying to push the envelope by supporting ES6, more APIs, etc while node.js isn't focusing on that. This eventually means if I write my module for node.js it should still work for io.js but if I write it for io.js, even if it does take advantage of better performance, ES6 syntax, etc, it won't work for node.js. I can't imagine anyone wants that kind of fragmentation.
- cwmma 12y agoio.js is pushing the envelope in terms of supporting up to date/still supported versions of V8, all the other stuff is just gravy.
- neumino 12y agoIf you write your code for node.js, it should work on io.js. Fragmentation is good, it stimulates the eco-system for better products.
- BinaryIdiot 12y ago> If you write your code for node.js, it should work on io.js. Yes, this was one of the points I mentioned however this precludes me from using newer and possibly better APIs and syntax in io.js. If that's the path to take what is the point of io.js if everything will be written to the lowest common denominator? > Fragmentation is good, it stimulates the eco-system for better products. Maybe? I'm not sure. It certainly hasn't looked very rosey from Android's point of view but has it worked for other things? I'm skeptical.
- eunoia 12y ago> Fragmentation is good, it stimulates the eco-system for better products. I'm skeptical too. Maybe fragmentation isn't always bad, but flat out "good"? I've also done Android development, and the fragmentation makes developing for the platform more expensive and time consuming. I don't know of any "good" that comes of it.
- itsbits 12y agonode has to act fast..IO.js is fast catching up..it already supports most of ES6 parts..
- phpnode 12y agocatching up? io.js is waaaaay ahead of node both in terms of features and community engagement
- joshstrange 12y agoio.js was "caught up" from day 1, that's the nature of a fork.
- doublerebel 12y agoAnyone who thinks io.js has "won" is a) living in the tech bubble and b) missing the point of the fork. The community at large is unconcerned about io.js, they are developing for node.js because that's how they (we) all make money. Node was in no danger for that fact alone. The winner here is the open source community. We now have 2 excellent options: a beta for the bleeding edge, stability for the enterprise, and forward progress for both. ES6 is great, but for anyone who wants to write isomorphic code without a lot of pain in compilers, is limited by browser adoption. Expect that to be at least 3 years out, during which node will continue to succeed.
- yunong 12y agoThis is one of the greatest attributes of open source; the ability to fork. Both io.js and Node.js can succeed independently of each other. The server side javascript community is as vibrant as ever -- with adoption ramping up exponentially among big enterprises and startups alike. The foundation itself is a great step forward for Node.js, and will result in much needed enterprise investment in the runtime.
- iends 12y agoYou're entirely missing the point if you think this is just about ES6 or even a better v8. There are a number of core contributors to Node.js that are unhappy with Joyent's stewardship of node.js. The core contributors want to work on the node.js core and provide new features. Joyent has not enabled these core contributors to make these improvements, and have seemingly alienated some great developers like Ben Noordhuis for political reasons. Hence the io.js fork. It's been clear from the beginning that the io.js folks are willing to work with Joyent and node.js, if Joyent is willing to give up its iron fisted control of the project.
- ziles88 12y agoIt's very difficult to unpack this, just so much wrong. First let's start with the misconception that io.js is "bleeding edge" or that it is any less stable than node. This is 100% factually incorrect, hundreds of open tickets have been closed with io.js that have not for node. It is tenfold more stable, and it's trajectory has already outpaced in two weeks what nodejs has in a year and a half. Second, this is not a win for either party or the community. For the community, you'll get people like you who now think node.js is somehow automatically more stable and reputable because they have a fancy big-wig 'foundation'. For io.js team, it now shows Joyents true colors that they are stubborn and wish to continue down their path and are now unlikely to merge at all in the future. For the node.js team, it now means they are just prolonging their decline. They still have not a single full time node developer, and have lost almost all of the developers who actually made node.js with 0% chance they'll ever come back (the governance will never be compatible with Joyents new corporate dictatorship model). Finally, the choice to use io.js should not be ES6, it should be the fact it's a more stable, secure, and actively developed project, plain and simple. It does not force you to use ES6 so I don't know why you're talking about browser adoption at all. I have io.js running in production right now and I didn't change a single line of code when 'porting' my codebase from an old node.js installation.
- jfaucett 12y agoWhy all the negativity for Node? Seriously, lots of good developers have spent their time developing this project and all these comments are just about how io.js is so great or node failed at x. As far as I can see this looks like good news: "... to establish the Node.js Foundation, which will be committed to the continued growth and evolution of Node.js, while maintaining a collaborative environment to benefit all users." An open source project is getting a stable backbone. Come on people, this is great news for developers.
- itsbits 12y agoI think for quite a lot of time Node wasn't doing much. The rebellion formed IO.Js. But what they forgot is still IO.JS is fork of Node. Only people like us who follow Node closely aware of IO.js thgh. Node is still preferred everywhere. It can still catch up with all the new features like ES6/7.
- aravan 12y agonode remains in the name. community cares only about code. IO.JS is gone forward, we are moving with io.js.
- mercer 12y agoThe problem (for node) is that the kind of developers who would node.js at this point are exactly the kind of developers who are aware of io.js, at the very least, and quite possibly aware of the reasons for its existence (which don't paint node and its steward in a positive light).
- dkarapetyan 12y agoThe list of names in the foundation doesn't exactly inspire confidence.
- serve_yay 12y agoThis attitude is tiresome. Maybe, some of the negativity is coming from people who have a reason to be negative. I don't like the idea that accomplishments mean a force-field against criticism. (Actually, I hate it.) Plus a lot of the negativity is not about the work itself but about how the project structure prevented work from happening.
- drderidder 12y agoAbout a year ago I posted "node.js needs a new home" on the mailing list. It started a minor s### storm and a couple of local IBM guys went down to talk to Joyent, which eventually led to the whole advisory board / foundation initiative. Mostly it was all back-room discussions between companies taking place in private from the wider community. They're great people, but that isn't really what I had in mind. IBM's cloud offering runs on the PowerPC architecture, and older versions of V8 won't run on it, so they can't offer Node hosting. They ported a private build of Node to run on PowerPC using a new version of V8, but Joyent has so far refused to upgrade V8 despite having a pull request with all the work done. It looks a lot like Joyent has been dragging their heels on V8 updates just to fend off an IBM cloud service for node. The first five words of the announcement are: "Joyent, IBM, Microsoft, PayPal, Fidelity". That says a lot right there. StrongLoop, NPM and a bunch of others are excluded, the whole thing seems to have been baked up in private by people who aren't core contributors, and then sprung on the community like it's some great thing. Maybe it's a step in the right direction, but as it stands I'd expect this foundation to be about as useful as another hole in the head. I've seen enough corporate bad behaviour from some of them to not care about their special little club right now, and I don't think it will win too many people over. [Update: Fedor posted about it here https://medium.com/@iojs/io-js-and-a-node-js-foundation-4e14699fb7be https://medium.com/@iojs/io-js-and-a-node-js-foundation-4e14... ]
- iends 12y agoThanks for the interesting perspective. One of the things that has always bothered me was that in your thread Isaacs was adamantly against a foundation. Suddenly now he is all for it. Was he simply repeating the Joyent party line then, or has he since changed his mind? I'm also disappointed about the lack of inclusion of StrongLoop and NPM, who both have key contributors to node.js among their ranks.
- drderidder 12y agoBasically anyone who has a business model related to the node.js ecosystem would benefit by not having development under the control of a single corporate entity. Isaac was in a tough place back then. I think spinning off NPM was a good move for him and it's great to see him on board with the community fork. PS. A number of people were against it at first, including Nodejitsu guys and Michael Rodgers. I wrote that either a foundation or a community fork were inevitable. Eventually people realized it, and it turned out to be a community fork. If a meaningful foundation were to happen at this point it would have to be built around io.js in my opinion.
- aravan 12y agoPlease get tj https://github.com/tj https://github.com/tj to node.
- epx 12y agoBut is Node.js "he" or "she"?
- oso2k 12y agoIt's sad, too, that Joyent and/or moderator Forest Norvell are rejecting posts to the Google Groups which are non-supportive of the new "Foundation". Doesn't seem like they really have the interests of the "community" in mind, IMO.
- othiym23 12y agoWhile I am responsible for moderating the [nodejs] Google group, I'm not the only moderator, and have been too busy to spend much time on it recently. It's not my intention to squelch discussion, and I'll touch bases with the other moderator to make sure that we're at least being consistent. At the same time, one of the primary reasons for moderating the list in the first place was to ensure that the group is constructive and useful, and not just a venue for flamewars. This has been a problem when discussions around foundations, Joyent, forks, and the like have happened in the past. In fact, it nearly killed the group last time this discussion happened (a lot of longtime community members with a lot to contribute gave up on it in disgust), so I'm not going to claim that we're not going to step in if things get overly heated.
- aredridel 12y agoI did reject two particularly snarky, otherwise contentless messages today. Otherwise I've let nearly everything through.
- Lazare 12y agoCall me cynical, but I feel like this: 1. Shows that the io.js people correct when they identified the problem 2. Doesn't solve the problem Prior to this announcement you could say "the io.js people are crazy; just trust in Joyent". (Not saying you'd be right, just that you could say it and no be obviously wrong. Isaacs, for example, was a proponent of this view.) Now, even Joyent is admitting that there's an issue. But it's pretty damn hard to see how the issue could be solved by this specific proposal. Joyent, IBM, Microsoft, PayPal, Fidelity? Right, that totally solves the worries about stagnation, corporate control, or excessive Joyent influence.
- rayshan 12y agoListening to panel discussion at Node Summit now, it was discussed by Scott Hammond that Node.js Foundation corporate membership costs $5k to $250k, vague on individual membership
- dasil003 12y agoI realize this is biased, but for me Joyent's involvement in anything is reason to be suspicious. Back in 2004 me and several hundred others fronted the money to get Joyent (aka TextDrive) off the ground. The marketing was fabulous, they had A-list blogger Dean Allen as founder and spokesperson, and Jason Hoffman as CTO spouting off an unending stream of pie-in-the-sky ideas about how awesome the tech was going to be. Over several years it became clear that Jason was only interested in playing with cool technologies and a lot of public self aggrandizement in the process. However, never did they seem to deliver any stable game changing technology to the level they had hyped. It seems like they eventually they sort of limped out with an alternative platform that could be competitive if you squinted hard enough, and then sold it by means of aforementioned marketing skills. But for those of us who got the company off the ground, we basically all got screwed. And even though Jason has left Joyent, to me their DNA is suspect, and I would never trust them as stewards of an open source project.
- Lazare 12y agoOh man, I'd forgotten all about the fiasco. Wikipedia has a nice roundup of the lifetime hosting shitstorm: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TextDrive http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TextDrive
- mercer 12y agoDamn. I was already a bit skeptical of Joyent, but this doesn't inspire more confidence.
- dodyg 12y agoPeople has to pick a side. It makes no sense supporting two 'compatible-ish' platforms going forward.