Govern Node Right

I’m going to take a minute to comment on the Node.js fork known as io.js.

tl;dr - Node.js and io.js should merge and the Node Foundation should use the open governance model proven by io.js

The Fork

When io.js started I was mostly apathetic about the fork. I thought it could lead to good things but it was too soon to tell. To quote Eran Hammer’s post on the subject: “Can things get better? Absolutely!”

That was largely my sentiment before the first of the year. As time passed, I started to see how io’s governance model gave me a great deal of insight into where they were going and what they wanted to do.

Investment

I’m not a contributor to the Node.js core, but I am a heavy user of it. I use it when writing frontend JavaScript with Grunt. I’ve built APIs with Express and Hapi. Recently I started exploring static site generators like Hexo. Not to mention this blog runs on Ghost which is of course built on Node. To say that I am heavily invested in Node would be accurate.

The existence of the fork makes for plenty of confusion as to what works and what doesn’t. I’ve probably felt the pain less than others.

Governance and the Way Forward

So where do Node.js and io.js go from here?

Joyent recently announced the creation of the Node.js Foundation. This is a step in the right direction, but more needs to be done. The two projects need to merge.

Open Governance

In the 2 years or so I’ve used Node I don’t think I’ve ever had as clear of an idea of where the project was going as in the short time that io.js has been around. This is why I firmly believe that the Node.js foundation should adopt the io.js governance model.

A recent io.js blog post hinted that this is a possibility. I hope that the techical committee makes this a reality.

A Word of Thanks

I was inspired to write this by William Bert’s site nodegovernance.io and his post on the subject. A big thank you to him and the rest of the Node.js/io.js community.