Reunited: io.js rejoins with Node.js

Paul Krill

A merger between Node.js and the io.js fork is afoot, with the io.js faction even joining the Node.js Foundation for governance of the popular server-side JavaScript platform.

The code merge is already taking place, said io.js representative Mikeal Rogers. The io.js technical committee this week voted in favor of both the merger and joining the foundation, he said.

“In the immediate future you’ll see more io.js releases while we finish up the code merge for a unified node.js releases,” Rogers said in an email on Friday. “After that we’ll just be doing Node.js releases, but we still own all the io.js assets, so I’m sure we’ll find some use for all the assets.” Version 2.0 of io.js was released earlier this month.

A participant in both io.js and Node.js, Bert Belder, explained in an email Friday how the merger impacts users working on the two projects. “From now on, the people previously formerly working on node.js and io.js will be working together again. To a certain extent, this was already the case, but we’ll now have our weekly meetings jointly and make decisions together.” Technical improvements made by the io.js faction will now become available to all Node.js users, he said.

Merging the projects, Rogers said, “was an easy choice once the governance stuff was worked out and we had a foundation. The goals of Node.js and io.js have never differed. We just had different ideas about how to achieve those goals and we’ve been able to reconcile those ideas into a much stronger merged project now.”

Dissatisfied with the progress of Node.js, which has been under the jurisdiction of Joyent, members of the Node.js community decided to form the io.js fork late last year. Since then, there have been expectations of a reunion between the two camps.

“Io.js was growing tremendously, and we needed a neutral organization to house the project and own the assets,” Rogers said. “We’ve been working with the people creating the foundation for months on a new governance model and what the foundation ended up with was basically an improved version of the io.js governance model so it was a pretty easy choice to join.” The foundation’s board still is being established, however, and has not convened yet, Rogers said.

This story, "Reunited: io.js rejoins with Node.js" was originally published by InfoWorld.