The news that broke at the Node Summit last week -- that Joyent and others are proposing to create a Node.js Foundation -- came as no surprise to anyone who has been watching the controversy around everyone's favorite server-side JavaScript platform. It’s been clear for a while that Node.js has outgrown its roots and become an important structural tool for the software industry.
Node.js's hosts at Joyent didn’t plan for this -- the code had been an employee project rather than a strategic investment. While Node.js is an important part of Joyent's operations, it’s not a key product for the company, which has certainly spent far more to host it than it has received in business value as a pioneer of container-based cloud deployment. Joyent deserves credit for acting responsibly and maintaining its commitment as steward, despite the intense interest -- and fierce political intrigue -- in which it found itself.
Node has seen grassroots adoption that has led to enterprise deployments of the kind many recognize in open source, where CIOs are sure the technology isn’t in use in their business until they actually ask the operations staff. That in turn has led to the usual dichotomy between the needs of operations teams for stability (change only where it’s needed, preferably infrequently after rigorous testing) and the outlook of developers (who want to try every new idea now or sooner).
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