Express will become Node.js' first incubator project

Feb 11, 2016 00:20 GMT  ·  By

IBM, the company that owns the Express Web framework for Node.js, one of the ecosystem's most popular packages, has announced it plans to donate the project to the Node.js Foundation.

Despite being heralded as a way to run JavaScript on the server-side, setting up Node.js to run as a server can be a real pain for the non-connoisseur. To address this issue, the Express(.js) project was put together a few years back, as a Node.js web application server framework, similar to what Sinatra was for Ruby.

Due to its small size and minimalistic approach, Express became the de-facto standard for creating viable Node.js Web servers. But in spite of the project's tremendous usefulness, Express has changed hands quite often in the past and was at one point at the center of a huge scandal in the open source community.

The "Express to StrongLoop" scandal

Created by TJ Holowaychuk, its original author quasi-abandoned Express a few years back, allowing members of the open source community to slowly take the project's reins.

While many authors abandon their projects, TJ had a sudden change of heart and quickly returned when StrongLoop started showing some interest in sponsoring and then later in acquiring the project.

After agreeing to sell Express to StrongLoop, TJ was scorned by the open source community for selling a key project to a company that had a direct interest in exerting its control. The entire scandal revolved around the fact that StrongLoop, a company that was providing Node.js products, gained control of a key open source project, used by the open source community and by many of its competitors.

Express lands in IBM's lap

But StrongLoop never abused its position, and when the company was bought by IBM this past autumn, the same questions started to be raised once again, but in IBM's name.

Now, five months after buying StrongLoop, Big Blue has decided to put everyone's fears to rest and has donated Express to the Node.js Foundation, where it will become the Foundation's first-ever incubator project.

This means that all decisions regarding Express' future will now be taken by Node.js leadership, where IBM's Vice President of Open Technology Todd Moore also serves as a Board Member, alongside representatives from many other companies that deploy Node.js in their systems.