Sustaining webpack for the future: Part 2
You have invested your time in using and learning webpack, and we want your investment to last.
In response to Part 1
In only ~24 hours, we’ve already seen an overflowing response from our first post on Sustaining webpack for the future Part: 1. We cannot thank enough every backer who has already joined our cause and collective. You are now helping shape the future of webpack!! If you haven’t already, you can visit our open collective to pitch in!
Successful open source projects
Nadia Eghbal describes successful open source projects with a few characteristics:
Money can only make a project supported. It can’t make it popular (consider venture backed, unsuccessful infrastructure projects) or healthy (that part comes down to the people).
We realize webpack is a popular tool. The statistics do not lie:
Before things were getting real, we lacked a community voice, transparency, consistent maintenance, and support. Now, we have a contributor-team of almost 20 people. They have devoted themselves to helping support all of the core loaders and plugins inside of the webpack organization so we can focus on core. But there are still a few things that we have been lacking: project infrastructure and governance.
What would happen if webpack’s core team chose to not maintain the project anymore? Who would take over? Who would protect the time you invested into learning, implementing, and using webpack. It’s thoughts like these that we come across from time to time in less-than-accurate infographics on twitter:
Even though this tweet doesn’t accurately reflect the other 30+ repositories under our organization, it still has a grain of truth to it. But, we have found a solution.
I told you we had some exciting news didn’t I?
webpack and the JS Foundation
I’m proud to announce that the webpack organization is now a member of the JS Foundation.
As described by the JS Foundation:
Developers rely on a growing portfolio of open source technologies to create, test and deploy critical applications. By creating a center of gravity for the open source JavaScript ecosystem, the JS Foundation’s mission is to drive broad adoption and ongoing development of key JavaScript solutions and related technologies. The JS Foundation will also work to facilitate collaboration within the JavaScript development community to ensure those projects maintain the quality and diverse contribution bases that provide for long-term sustainability.
What was once known as the jQuery Foundation, has joined forces with The Linux Foundation to create a newly focused and supported organization devoted to helping projects like us succeed, encourage collaboration, and persist in the community.
What changes will we see?
Right away? Probably nothing. But here are some of the benefits that you will see in the coming weeks:
- More collaboration between open source projects. This means greater interoperability and a larger contribution base from the community. We believe this is the true solution to our “bus factor”.
- Long term growth, adoption and support: even though we have seen monumental growth as of late, in years to come, webpack will still be supported. The JS Foundation helps ensure through governance and advisory that the future of the project is preserved.
The best way to learn more about the JS Foundation is by visiting their website, and following them on twitter!
Looking forward, we are already working with teams like Esprima and MomentJS to find incredible ways to collaborate on solving common problems in the JavaScript community. In the end, we vowed that your investments in us would not go to waste.
Now we can ensure to deliver that promise. Combined with both Open Collective and the JS Foundation we have ensured that anyone can help shape webpack’s future.
To help support webpack, visit our open collective and become a backer or sponsor today!!!!
