The Linux Foundation has welcomed the addition of the new JavaScript Foundation.
Kris Borchers, executive director of the foundation, announced the news, saying that the JavaScript Foundation aims "to support a vast array of technologies that complement projects throughout the entire JavaScript ecosystem."
This includes both client and server side application libraries, mobile application testing frameworks, and JavaScript engines.
All jQuery Foundation projects will also be united within the JS Foundation including jQuery, Lodash, ESLint, Esprima, Grunt, RequireJS, jQuery UI, Globalize, Sizzle, Jed, and Dojo.
Angel Diaz, IBM's vice president of cloud technology and architecture, said the new JS Foundation is an exciting time for the JavaScript community:
By bringing together the community around core platform technologies and the application tier with the JS Foundation, the industry is establishing a center of gravity to drive innovation in the open through code, collaboration and community development.
We’re proud to continue our long tradition of supporting open tech communities by becoming a founding member of the JS Foundation, which we believe will set the bar for openly governed JavaScript projects.
The open, technical governance model adopted by the JS Foundation includes a Technical Advisory Committee (TAC) along with a Governing Board. While the TAC will provides technical advice to projects and inform the Board about technical opportunities it sees in the JavaScript ecosystem, the board of directors will guide business decisions and marketing.
The JS Foundation comes complete with a new open, technical governance structure, along with a Mentorship Program that the foundation says will encourage "a culture of collaboration and sustainability" in the community.
Initial projects welcomed into the Mentorship Program include Appium, Interledger.js, JerryScript, Mocha, Moment.js, Node-RED, and webpack.
JerryScript, contributed by Samsung, is a lightweight JavaScript engine for IoT devices. Youngyoon Kim, vice president of Samsung's software R&D centre, said the company has shown how JerryScript can enable high efficiency devices across the Internet of Things such as smart watches, and other wearables.
"We invite JavaScript developers, regardless of their background and vertical expertise, to join us in both the JavaScript and IoT ecosystems,” Kim said.
Mikeal Rogers, community manager of the Node.js Foundation, told InfoQ the Node.js Foundation sees many synergies and opportunities to closely align with the JS Foundation.
Rogers said that being a part of the Linux Foundation's portfolio of developer-focused technologies will enable cross-project collaboration between the Node.js Foundation and the new JS Foundation:
"The Node.js Foundation continues to focus on enabling widespread adoption and acceleration of Node.js development and other related modules," Rogers said, "Node.js has become a pervasive technology, and it’s important that the JS Foundation enables the technology to further develop and evolve to stay ahead of market growth demands."
The reaction to the news from the JavaScript community on Hacker News was mixed, with some asking if the JS Foundation's formation would reduce fragmentation of the JavaScript space, with no clear agreement on if fragmentation was necessarily bad.
Concerns were also raised that the founding members of the foundation were "not interested in developing and promoting the best open source tools, those tools which are most deserving of broad adaption."
John-David Dalton, creator of Lodash, replied "From my experience the foundation is a pretty chill, hands off, non-profit. I sought out and voluntarily joined the Dojo Foundation early in Lodash's development. Eventually the Dojo Foundation and the jQuery Foundation merged. It was great! Regardless of the name the foundation has proven valuable."