Storybook, some progress, next steps

Dear Reader,

Since an early draft of the Storybook open letter was first shared, the following has happened:

• The copyright license change was reverted. Thank you Igor. The conversation that was the catalyst was sparked from a draft of the open letter being shared.
• Norbert (a leader in the Storybook project) had previously said Storybook Loop is a closed-source project belonging to Storybook. After publication of the open-letter, it’s been clarified that this is not true.
  Norbert followed-up in Storybook’s Discord Server on 11/27 that what he said previously was due to a misunderstanding on his part:

• This is a lead of the Storybook project admitting confusion about the ownership of a Storybook related project and Chroma, his employer, explaining it to him — this further highlights the need for mature neutral governance of the Storybook project.
• Since publishing the open letter, several people have asked why concerns addressed in the open-letter were not raised privately before publishing the open letter. They were raised on October 20th, in private, with a Storybook lead and Chroma employee. That person dismissed the conversation and shut it down. Nothing was done to address concerns raised until the open letter was published.

While there has been progress, a few things still need to be addressed:

• Storybook is important. Its identity is important. Its trademark is important. It has significantly large numbers of organizations and individuals depending on its future now. It needs a clarified formal governance structure to make clear decisions in the best interest of Storybook itself. Moving it to the Linux Foundation is an option that provides a neutral well-funded legal entity to own the “Storybook” trademark, and provides an easily-adoptable set of transparent organizing principles.
• Storybook needs clarity on how the Storybook brand and identity can be used. Is a company calling a commercial product “Storybook Loop” reasonable use of the brand and identity? I propose it’s not, and think open conversation is needed. Storybook needs to make these decisions and form an opinion itself, and not leave it up to a commercial entity to decide.

• The Storybook community needs clarity around whether the Storybook twitter account and blog and are the voice of the Storybook project. If they are, some discussion is in order about how to keep content published on these mediums neutral and commercially unbiased. What community review and approval process can be put in place to ensure a neutral voice?
• It’s unclear how decisions are made by the Storybook project on non-technical topics, such as those issues raised above, and how to represent copyright ownership in the license. A neutral governance structure consisting of people from a diverse set of interests would benefit Storybook in many ways. The Linux Foundation model would provide for this, and would allow for discussions to be held in convenient ways, such as on Discord.

The most organized place for Storybook related governance discussions right now is the #Maintenance channel in Storybook’s Discord server. I encourage you to join and share your opinion. ❤️

There’s also going to be a Storybook planning meeting held on Monday (Monday morning Pacific time). I encourage you to attend, and discuss these issues. The link to the planning meeting hangout will be posted in the #Maintenance channel in Storybook’s Discord server 15 minutes before the meeting starts.