Open source communities are often recognized for their constructive debate. There is a commonly held philosophy among open source contributors and developers that the best ideas result from disagreement and smart people discussing the merits of decisions and, of course, code. The Node.js and io.js communities are no different. Node.js, for example, is downloaded more than 2 million times a month and is supporting a new generation of network applications. io.js has a strong developer community innovating at the speed of light.
For the last six months developers from the technical committees of both communities have met and debated the direction of the projects and the code and recently agreed the best path forward would be together. Today there is a unified community.
That’s why we’re announcing the Node.js Foundation is formally established as a Linux Foundation Collaborative Project. It includes an open, technical governance structure that was examined, iterated and agreed upon through public review, as well as new investments in the project that demonstrate industry-wide support for this work.
The member roster for the Node.js Foundation is quite impressive and demonstrates the importance of these code bases. Founding and new members include Platinum members Famous, IBM, Intel, Joyent, Microsoft and PayPal. Gold members include GoDaddy, NodeSource and Progress Software, and Silver members Codefresh, DigitalOcean, Fidelity, Groupon, nearForm, npm, Sauce Labs, SAP, StrongLoop and YLD!. If your company is interested in participating as a member, please feel free to email direct at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
In the coming weeks and months, the community will continue its rigorous debate and discussions on how to merge the code bases for Node.js and io.js. There will be opportunities for broad participation as corporate members join the Foundation, Board Directors are elected and plans for Individual Members roll out. The community will also discuss where to go next and start self-organizing to execute on their plans. There’s a lot of work underway and I encourage you to join the discussions now. We’re excited to be a part of this work hosted in a neutral forum where everyone has a voice on the future of these important projects.