From the ‘stick a fork in it’ files:
Sometimes, open-source code is forked and it never returns. Case in point is LibreOffice and OpenOffice.org as well Jenkins and Hudson. In those cased the projects were forked because developers didn’t like the way thing were going and the forks have (arguably) gone on to become vastly more popular and widely deployed then the original project.
The node.js project was forked by the io.js project at the beginning of the year, but in June came back into the fold under the auspices of the the Linux Foundation backed node.js foundation.
Now the first code release as part of the Node.js Foundation is out with v 4.0.0.
“This release represents countless hours of hard work encapsulated in both the Node.js project and the io.js project that are now combined in a single codebase,” the Node.js foundation wrote in a blog post. “The Node.js project is now operated by a team of 44 collaborators, 15 of which form its Technical Steering Committee (TSC). Further, over 100 new individuals have been added to the list of people contributing code to core since v0.12.7.”
It’s great to see consensus form around node.js, and a way forward with clear governance. The release of node.js 4.0.0 is proof positive that there can be a path home for forks, so long as they don’t stray too far.
Sean Michael Kerner is a senior editor at InternetNews.com. Follow him on Twitter @TechJournalist