Is Storybook being commercially hijacked?

An open letter calling to protect Storybook’s future.

Update: An update on what’s transpired, and proposed next steps has been posted here. 👈

Dear Arunoda,

We, the co-signed members of the Storybook community, are writing to request that you move Storybook to the Linux Foundation. A few minutes of your time will provide a solid foundation for Storybook’s future and growth in the years to come. This letter puts forward the rationale, explains why now is the right time, and why the process needs to start with you.

You started Storybook, an amazing open-source project that’s been adopted by thousands of companies, and has received contributions from over 500 developers. Over 500 different developers have contributed code, time, and goodwill to the project, and helped build Storybook’s identity with its promotion and adoption. You started the movement, and in the time since you stepped away, it’s been nurtured with broad community collaboration. It’s a tremendous technical achievement.

While the technical development of Storybook has been progressing well with contributions from many, it hasn’t developed a mature neutral governance model yet. As such, Storybook’s community-built identity and brand are at risk of, and may be in the process of being hijacked to serve the commercial interests of one company.

In the time since Chroma Software Inc hired two people with Storybook commit access, they have announced “Storybook Loop”, and made it unclear whether it’s a Chroma project or Storybook project. The announcement was hosted on Chroma’s blog, while the @storybookjs twitter account announced it as a Storybook project. One of the people hired by Chroma Software Inc insists it’s a Storybook project, yet it’s being developed behind closed doors as closed source. Other committers haven’t been informed of this, and it’s not in the spirit of the Storybook community.

Another point to consider is that the copyright in the license was silently changed from belonging to you to one of the people Chroma Software Inc hired, without a regular Pull Request process, or any other recent community discussion or vote.

The change has since been reverted after discussion arose from people reading early drafts of this letter. The discussion itself also highlights the current lack of a clear decision-making process on important non-technical topics, and identifies the need for a mature neutral governance model. A governance board made up of a cross-section of the community could easily make a clear unbiased authoritative decision on this non-technical topic.

On the topic of the license, the most recent public conversation was in issue 1126 where you proposed moving the license to “some other party which has no financial or other bad agendas in mind”. In that conversation, yourself, Norbert, and Daniel all suggested moving to the JS Foundation, which is part of the Linux Foundation.

The Linux Foundation is a non-profit foundation that specializes in providing a neutral home for collaborative development. The foundation has expertise in ensuring strong healthy governance in communities where there are many diverse stakeholders; Stakeholders with different perspectives on the direction a project should take. It provides a neutral host foundation for the project’s intellectual property, and a future with truly neutral community governance.

Storybook would be in good company at the Linux Foundation. It’s home to the JSFoundation, NodeJS, Kubernetes (CNCF), GraphQL, LetsEncrypt, Linux itself, and 100+ other significant open source projects.

The Linux Foundation has solid roots and deep financial stability to ensure longevity. More than 1,300 companies back the Linux Foundation, with 25,000+ active developers contributing code across its projects. The companies include the likes of Google, Microsoft, and Uber; companies that compete with each other, but cooperate in their backing of the Linux Foundation in order to support free open-source projects of significance. Many of those 1,300 companies are users of and contributors to Storybook.

Executives of the Linux Foundation, including Chris Aniszczyk (VP Developer Relations) and Michael Dolan (VP Strategic Programs), have already examined the Storybook project, and felt Storybook could strongly benefit from the Linux Foundation’s assistance in building a neutral governance structure. They’re both ready and on standby to help us move forward.

Even though you haven’t been actively involved in Storybook recently, as the creator of Storybook, the process for moving to the Linux Foundation needs to start with you. The first step would be you reviewing and signing paperwork prepared by Michael Dolan from the Linux Foundation. A few minutes of your time to start this process would set Storybook on a sustainable path for the years ahead.

The early years have been incredibly positive. The Storybook project benefited from the work of hundreds of people. Beyond the contributors, there are thousands of organizations that have integrated it into their technology stacks and workflows, on the strength of it being OSS. You’ve improved front-end software development for thousands.

Moving the project to the Linux Foundation will lay the foundation for it to continue growing as a strong and vibrant community-driven OSS project in the years to come. We, the co-signed members of the Storybook community assert that the time to do it is now.

Signed (in alphabetical order),

Joe Carney — Storybook user
Phil Cockfield, originator of the concept that Storybook was inspired from
Loyal Chow, Storybook tool-builder and user
Joscha Feth — Storybook contributor and user
Mike Fotinakis — Storybook tool-builder and evangelist
Tim Haines — Storybook tool-builder, contributor, evangelist, and user
Sam Hatoum — Storybook evangelist and user
Harrison Harnisch — Storybook user
Stevan Litobac — Storybook user
Tim Lucas — Storybook user
Matt Rothenberg — Storybook user
Amit Zur — Storybook tool-builder and contributor

Note: Among the co-signers are four individuals associated with three different companies that are competitive with Chromatic Software Inc. Other co-signers are individuals who are independent of these three companies. This letter was originally authored by Tim Haines, co-founder of Percy, and has incorporated suggestions from many reviewers.

Dear Reader, if you’re a user of Storybook and would like to see its future protected, visit Storybook’s discord server, open the #maintenance channel, and say you’d like to see Storybook moved to the Linux Foundation. ❤️