is express dying?

[TrejGun]

Since TJ left the project and it became "property" of StrongLoop the project is slowly dying. I guess you (StrongLoop) promised TJ and thus a community to continue to maintain the code. Sure you want to push part of express users to use yours solutions and to make money on support. But open-source gave a start to your company and if you don't want to share back your code and time, just give a control back to community

[aredridel]

What? Doug Wilson is doing a spectacular job of maintenance. One of the hardest working folks I've ever encountered in open source.

[Knighton910]

I agree with @aredridel Doug wilson is always working his ass off. I'm a huge Tj fan @tj . I think what your comparing is, express when it was hot & it was the go to framework for Node.js , but now there are more frameworks vying for the attention of developers. I don't think you're completely off your rocker, but to each his own :smile: :+1:

[TrejGun]

I know Doug Wilson was committing to express (and other TJ's project) since its beginning and i appreciate his work. However i don't know if he works for strongloop now and have less free time.

please, look at commits there are nothing except new npm versions and some docs since august and a very few before

PR for async route handlers was introduced in november and not merged yet https://github.com/strongloop/express/pull/2809

release 5.0 was initiated on july but stale since november https://github.com/strongloop/express/pull/2237

[ghost]

You should check this out: https://github.com/strongloop/express/issues/2827

[Twipped]

@TrejGun If the intent of your post is to shame strongloop, you really need to mention strongloop in the post, because right now it looks like you're shitting all over @dougwilson's hard work.

Most of the bulk of Express' codebase has been refactored out into external dependencies, which Doug is constantly maintaining. That is why the only commits you see are npm version bumps, because he's updating for changes in those dependencies. Express 5 will take this even further by completely removing the routing engine from express core. Look at Doug's public timeline and tell me that he isn't actively working on Express.

Doug is one of the hardest working OSS contributors in the NodeJS community. Comments such as yours not only undermine his massive efforts, but also contribute to developer burn out (which Doug has recently recovered from). You are not helping with the problem, @TrejGun, you're making it worse.

[dougwilson]

Hi everyone, reading @TrejGun 's initial post, it doesn't sound directed to me, more directed to the project/StrongLoop/IBM. Thanks for the kind works, everyone, I really want to see the continued success of Express, but the situation of the project ownership makes this extremely difficult.

I am working with IBM to find a good path forward.

[NetOpWibby]

Yikes!

Express is awesome. I don't understand why StrongLoop/IBM won't speak, that's absurd.

[tj]

FWIW projects don't have to change in order to be good. Nothing wrong with a project finding its place and staying relatively put. I haven't been following what's going on with Express, that might not even be the case but that's my opinion.

[mikermcneil]

@tj hallelujah

@dougwilson thank you for taking the time to post publicly about this. You have my support, and the support of the Sails.js core maintainers regardless of what happens. I am hopeful that when the moving parts settle down, IBM will be able to help. Let me know if there's any way I can assist in the interim.

[TrejGun]

@ChiperSoft don't know what you are about. there is strongloop and there is no Doug's name in the initial post.

@tj very glad to see you in this topic. the life is change. we have big upcoming es6 changes which can help reduce code and improve performance. for example #2809 is only 8 lines but i will shave of 200 lines from each of my projects

@dougwilson thanks for you answer, you just confirmed my guesses about a reason strongloop bought express. at least they don't mind if it die. sad story but not so rare. and the solution is not so rare too.

express has MIT license so anybody can fork it at any time and continue to maintain as express 2.0 what do you think about this?

[ritch]

What? Doug Wilson is doing a spectacular job of maintenance. One of the hardest working folks I've ever encountered in open source.

+1

[ritch]

Hey gals and guys. Express is certainly active and poised to move even faster. I agree with concerns that @dougwilson has been unfairly carrying the project maintenance, which just isn't sustainable. I know from experience that triaging issues and working on bugs is not very exciting work. It leads to burn out fairly quickly. It just shows how dedicated @dougwilson is to this project that he has been doing it for this long and without much help.

IBM leadership has heard the call for help loud and clear and is announcing increased sponsorship of the project including two very talented IBM developers: @hacksparrow (Yaapa) and @tunniclm (Mike). Other names are likely to follow as we more clearly understand what is required and how we can assist. This means more dedicated developers on the project than ever before.

We are also looking at ways to optimize how the express and related repositories are organized to make it easier to contribute to the project by community members as individuals and in organizations (including IBM).

This will take some time to get it right and we ask for your patience. Please keep your comments and recommendations coming to ensure all points of view are considered.

[EvanHahn]

I'd love to start contributing to Express but I'm not quite sure where to start. Are there issues I can pick up?

[ritch]

You could take a look at the list of help wanted issues if you are looking for some issues to dig into.

The project needs the most help right now triaging issues on github (determining if bugs are bugs, pointing people to existing answers to questions, etc). Also idling and answering questions in gitter would be a huge help to the project.

[jordonias]

@ritch Is gitter used more often than irc? I've have never used gitter before and can't seem to find a room for express even.

[EvanHahn]

@jordonias Not sure about usage, but here's a link to the Gitter site.

[jordonias]

Thanks @EvanHahn. Not sure why I wasn't able to find it, I searched for express and strongloop/express, maybe this should be in Readme.md

[dougwilson]

I think this issue can be closed (I cannot actually close it). I have removed myself from the SrongLoop organization on GitHub and so no longer can manage issues or commit code.

[crandmck]

maybe this should be in Readme.md

@jordonias Good suggestion. PR?

FYI, the Gitter channel is noted in http://expressjs.com/en/resources/community.html.

[dougwilson]

Re: is express dying?

I would say that no, not particularly, as Express has it's spot in the ecosystem that is well-established.

And remember, I will be helping with Express, mainly with questions from IBM employees rather than direct actions in this repository. Please welcome in @hacksparrow , @crandmck , and @tunniclm to the main repository!

[Twipped]

@dougwilson are you moving on to PillarJS full swing, or is this something else entirely?

[rmg]

@dougwilson you should probably add some people to the express module as maintainers.. at the moment you are the only one who can actually publish a release of express.

[dougwilson]

Hi @ChiperSoft , both, basically. Some of the things outlined are conceptually above the pillarjs level of separation. As I have been working on on trying to get HTTP/2 into Express, I have found it's probably not very doable because of how Express is done (since it's critically coupled with the Node.js built-in http module). It was probably inevitable that this would have resulted in a new framework anyway.

As I have been maintaining Express, my # 1 priority has been backwards-compatibility and not disrupting the entire ecosystem. There is nothing with this Express as-is in general, so if getting good HTTP/2 and Promises into Express results in a massive change for the community, it should just be a different framework anyway, .i.m.o. (similar to the Express/Koa split, really).

Hi @rmg , these kinds of details are being discussed in meetings with IBM. You're welcome to join if you speak with Jason from IBM or whoever is going to be scheduling them (I don't have insight into this).

[rmg]

@dougwilson I imagine npm owner add strongloop express would be a reasonable default action since the world was convinced a while ago that that was the case anyway.

Wouldn't that be better than leaving the project in a situation where the only person who can publish release has voluntarily given up their ability to tag releases.

[dougwilson]

Hi @rmg , I am working with IBM employees regarding this.

[rmg]

@dougwilson I'm sorry that I've upset you and failed to account for the privilege granted to me by being a StrongLoop/IBM employee. My statements here have been as a concerned Express user and nothing more, but I should have done better.

---

Just to wrap up my portion of this public thread, as an individual express user without any involvement in the IBM side of any discussions, my concern is:

https://github.com/strongloop/express/issues/2844#issuecomment-171430278

I have removed myself from the SrongLoop organization on GitHub and so no longer can manage issues or commit code.

+

$ npm owner ls express
dougwilson <...>

=

What happens if something critical comes up before the situation is resolved?

---

I will now proceed through IBM channels to get involved and offer whatever help I can.

[tunniclm]

I'd love to start contributing to Express but I'm not quite sure where to start. Are there issues I can pick up?

@EvanHahn I am also starting out with Express, I'd be happy to share in the process with you. I've been hanging out on gitter and IRC in the last few days getting up to speed.

IBM leadership has heard the call for help loud and clear and is announcing increased sponsorship of the project

As @ritch mentioned I have started working with Express and looking at the issues and pull requests that need addressing and generally trying to improve the project. @dougwilson has been a great help in understanding the current status of the project, I was looking forward to working more closely with him, and I remain hopeful that there is a path forward to achieving that.

[ritch]

I did not voluntarily give up on Express, IBM forced me out.

@dougwilson - IBM has no intention of forcing anyone off the project. Especially someone that has helped keep the project in such good shape. To be clear, we not only want you involved, we want you to be able to focus on leading the project. And like I said on the phone, I think it would be bad for the project if you left.

[jasnell]

+1 on what @ritch is saying here. all of the conversations we've had around express internal to IBM have been focused on growing community involvement and on finding ways of supporting the existing project leadership. This idea that anyone could have been forced off the project is rather shocking and surprising to me as it runs completely counter to how we approach open source. It definitely does appear that some kind of miscommunication has occurred.

@dougwilson, the last conversation I was aware of took place around mid December when you indicated that you would be voluntarily withdrawing from the Strongloop Github organization at the end of the year. As part of that conversation, IBM/StrongLoop committed that we would take a good look at how the repositories are currently organized in order to best support the project. However, given that the conversation came up right before the holidays (when many of us were either on or getting ready to go on vacation) and given that many of us on the IBM side are still ramping up on express, no decision was made one way or the other and we simply asked for a bit more time to figure out the approach that made the most sense. I'm rather befuddled to understand how us asking for that time time could be interpreted as "pushing" anyone out of the project -- but then again, I might be missing something.

I do understand that there may be a history here, and that these questions and frustrations may have been building for some time, but please keep in mind that for many of us on the IBM side, much of this is new and we've only just started to ramp up. Let's definitely keep chatting and working through the issue, but I ask you please do not feel that your contributions and participation are unwelcome in any way -- quite the contrary in fact. Express would not be where it is today if it were not for your contributions and leadership -- the entire community of express users (StrongLoop and IBM included) certainly owes you no small amount of gratitude for that.

Please feel free to reach out if you'd like to discuss further. I'm particularly interested in how we can grow the base of expressjs contributors to best support the project going forward.

[bjrmatos]

hi! a happy express user here.. dear IBM/Strongloop folks, please, please don't let @dougwilson leave the project, i think that everyone can agree that no one wants that to happen.

are there any cons to move the express project under the expressjs org? why not everyone contribute to the project behind a public org (like nodejs)? please do not let such issues overshadow the project.

[jasnell]

@bjrmatos: to be certain, while I personally would prefer him to stay on with the project, whether or not @dougwilson continues contributing to express is entirely up to him to decide. That said, however, the question over what ultimately happens with the project repos and overall governance is an orthogonal issue that is being actively discussed and will ultimately get settled out based on whatever is best for the community and users. It's unfortunate that there appears to have been some misunderstandings (on both sides) but what Doug ultimately decides to do is not the sole factor in making that decision.

[bjrmatos]

what ultimately happens with the project repos and overall governance is an orthogonal issue that is being actively discussed and will ultimately get settled out based on whatever is best for the community and users.

i think that everyone of us (the users) will gain more if the project is behind the expressjs org, retrieving back all the contributors that left the project when it was moved to Strongloop (you know, that move generate a lot of discomfort at that time), having doug and ibm collaborators work in the project will be a big win for us, so the only issue i see is the decision of where the project lives..

thnks for listening to me.

[jordonias]

i think that everyone of us (the users) will gain more if the project is behind the expressjs org

+1

[jasnell]

@bjrmatos @jordonias ... I definitely don't disagree. Open governance is the right approach it just needs to be done right and not be rushed. It is definitely good to hear from users on the matter so thank you very much for the comments :-)

[bjrmatos]

i hope that any misunderstanding can be cleared and have IBM and doug working together in express!

[dougwilson]

that is being actively discussed and will ultimately get settled out based on whatever is best for the community and users

If it is truly being discussed, the fact that I have not heard of such discussion, been involved, or even invited to, is just another big reason I am just turned off from the entire StrongLoop/IBM thing. Clearly I am not important to this project from IBM's point of view to be involved in such an important decision.

[aars]

@jasnell wrote

whether or not [at]dougwilson continues contributing to express is entirely up to him to decide.

Wow. That's grade-A bull and public shaming. It doesn't even matter what is actually true or not in this thread, since nobody can verify anything (except those involved themselves, who apparently aren't aware of who is or should be involved at whatever company or not).

By saying it is entirely up to personX is saying that no matter what IBM/Strongloop/whomever decides, no matter how they do or do not communicate, and no matter what actions they take, they have no effect on personX's decision to contribute/join/leave.

Even if I misread or misinterpreted that, this is just a horrible horrible public thread. Please close it as it adds nothing to the original question, which is answered by example. Express is very much alive, on a managers level at least.

[TrejGun]

@aars thanks for pointing out the answer for my question :) However to be alive, on a managers level is pretty same as to be buried alive. And doesn't solve a main problem - users wants new features.

If IBM works as an anchor and put a spokes in express wheels, community can get rid of them by forking the project as Open/Libre/Whatever-express. Do i need to remind you a story of OpenOffice and Oracle?

[tjwebb]

FWIW projects don't have to change in order to be good.

@tj @mikermcneil change and maintenance are not the same thing, of course. As an example, Express 3 is EOL. Using Express3 would be imprudent and risky not because it doesn't change, but because it won't change. This means all maintenance cost and risk is borne by the user.

Who exactly IBM decides to invite to these and how it works

@dougwilson this makes it sound like plans for express5 are still up in the air. One issue for me is that there was a flurry of activity around express 5 back in the summer (https://github.com/strongloop/express/tree/5.0.0-alpha.2) but now the express5 "hype", if you will, has died down.

I did not voluntarily give up on Express, IBM forced me out of this repository. hi! a happy express user here.. dear IBM/Strongloop folks, please, please don't let @dougwilson leave the project,

Amen. Good luck man.

[toddself]

The fact that issue #2310 sat open for so long with out an official response goes to only support how disinterested strongloop has been in the community portion of express.

Return it to the community. Or stop the lip service that this is a community project.

[jasonrhodes]

Return it to the community. Or stop the lip service that this is a community project.

Hear, hear!

[Fishrock123]

You don't really get anything from buying a repo, but you do give the community enormous maintenance pain.

This is both very silly(tm) and honestly downright depressing, especially as a previous co-maintainer.

[agauniyal]

People are still interested in it and express is infact de facto standard http-server framework for nodejs. Other frameworks started out being backed by major corps, yet express seems more popular than its alternatives. While I was hoping/tracking for http2 support, for now I'll say just don't drop the project.

[arackaf]

@dougwilson (or anyone) - pardon my ignorance, but is there anything stopping you, or anyone else from forking the Express repo, giving control to those who should have it, and then continuing on, with the hope that IBM stops being you-know-whats at some point, so things can be re-integrated? Basically the same thing that happened with Node and io.

[leo]

@arackaf :+1:

After reading all of the above comments, I still don't understand why nobody simply forks this thing into the expressjs org (which already contains most of its parts). After this change, the community could completely move to the new org and finally allow more people to actually manage stuff within the project. If I've understood this correctly, this would also mean that @dougwilson continues to work on it, together with the community.

I've noticed that there are many PRs and Issues on the project, but few people seem to care. To me, it feels a bit like express needs more people who have all those rights to manage the repo (merge PRs, close issues, etc.) and a new open governance model.

So why is nobody moving the project and the website? I thought it's licensed under MIT.

I can only see a mirror in the org. Also, express-js.org and express-js.com are both still available. If nobody of you wants to pay for the domain, just let me know and I'll buy it. Besides of that, I'd also directly like to apply as a contributor for the "new" express under the new org (at least to look after a few contributions).

It might take some time, but sooner or later every plugin and app developer will notice that the project is available under a new name (expressjs maybe?).

---

So ... who's with me?

[RnbWd]

Is express dying?

lol this is absolutely absurd. express is by far the most popular server in the nodejs ecosystem. If nobody touched this library for years that stat would remain the same. I mean, what is there left to do except fix bugs and increase stability?

I appreciate the work you (OP) and TJ contributed to create express - but IMO dev's focus on Koa and generators, in my mind, marked the 'end' of innovation for express.

Innovation should happen in new projects - fork express and make it creative - any major changes to the core api or functionality at this point would confuse people who are content using express as it is, because they've been using it for years and probably would like to continue for years to come.

Express is express - it's stabilized and solidified - as it should. What's the dif. between dead and stable?

To clarify I don't use strong loop and don't know anybody who works there. So I'm not defending them. Just fork it if you want to make changes

[agauniyal]

@leo express.js.org is available for free at dns.js.org and I haven't seen anyone register it yet so that shouldn't be a problem.

what is there left to do except fix bugs and increase stability?

@RnbWd See my comment above.

[mugli]

Return it to the community. Or stop the lip service that this is a community project.

Spot on! :+1:

[leo]

@agauniyal I'm not sure if a free service will provide enough stability for the future. But without that in mind, it would probably be a great idea since it doesn't depend on a single person.

[devinus]

I don't quite understand. Why can't Express just be forked to @expressjs and everybody goes on with their lives?

Doesn't @dougwilson still have the name on npm? Even if using the name Express was a problem, I'm sure renaming the project and org would happen faster than it takes me to make coffee in the morning, and the majority of the Node ecosystem will know the new framework lickety-split.

EDIT: Also, I'd just like to add thank you @dougwilson for all your hard work.