8 ms·

Bootstrap Maintainers Leave Twitter

412 points by pearkes 14y ago

andrewljohnson 14y ago
Just speculating here, but this doesn't exactly sound like it was blessed by Twitter: "Bootstrap will remain a Twitter project on GitHub for the time being, but we've realized the project has grown beyond us and the Twitter brand." If this was something Twitter believed too, I imagine there would be some fanfare around this, Twitter helping FLOSS and all that. More to this story?
- k-mcgrady 14y ago
  It sounds to me like the two guys left twitter and have decided to continue work on bootstrap. Being open source is there a reason they can't? I don't know much regarding the rules of open source but is it possible they could just fork it and continue where they left off (without twitters blessing)?
  - pyre 14y ago
    This is true, but I imagine that they couldn't keep the Bootstrap name, though that's up to Twitter if they want to force the devs out of Bootstrap development and 'defend their mark.'
    - Evbn 14y ago
      It would take 2 days for a fork to replace bootstrap in that case. Look at Hudson vs Jenkins.
- _rknLA 14y ago
  You have to take a pragmatic perspective here as well. I'd wager that the only reason Bootstrap is a Twitter project to begin with is because of the assignment clause of most employment agreements: If you develop something at a company, the company owns it. I can't imagine any managers at Twitter were sitting there thinking "Hey, I have this great idea that will make us boatloads of money! Let's release an open-source html/css/js framework that makes it super easy for anyone to make a site that looks like Twitter." In all likelihood, it was a project that the developers wrote for internal ops and later attempted (and succeeded) to open source. If you look at the Impact Graph on github (https://github.com/twitter/bootstrap/graphs/impact https://github.com/twitter/bootstrap/graphs/impact), you can see that it's pretty much Jacob and Mark's project. From Twitter's perspective, they can either let Jacob and Mark continue to run with it at no real cost to themselves (since it's open source and they can still use Bootstrap), or they can try to find someone within the organization to continue to maintain it, which has a very real cost -- developer time. Given that they may not find someone to fill that role and that forcing someone into it would probably be bad for the project, I think the decision makes a lot of sense for Twitter.
- popee 14y ago
  Isn't fork possible solution? Always?
therealarmen 14y ago
Hopefully their newfound time won't lead to unnecessary bloat for what is currently a beautiful framework. Keep it simple, keep it small, keep it clean.
jpadvo 14y ago
This is great -- an open source project started within a company, then spun off into its own independent entity. It's really great to see that. Major kudos to the team and to Twitter for having the generosity to acknowledge a responsibility to the community that extends past their ownership of the project they've created. Thanks. :)
outside1234 14y ago
Bootstrap is a great starting point - please keep up the great work!
jscheel 14y ago
I recall, from an issue I was dealing with, that a year ago Twitter didn't really give @mdo and @fat any time to work on bootstrap during normal business hours... yep, here it is https://github.com/twitter/bootstrap/issues/377#issuecomment-2330571 https://github.com/twitter/bootstrap/issues/377#issuecomment... (edit to fix link)
jaequery 14y ago
great move on their part, there is a huge future ahead of these guys. good luck to them.
yagoogaly 14y ago
With all of the great extensions people have developed for Bootstrap so far, It's clear that they're really on to something. I can't wait to see what direction they take it in after severing ties with Twitter.
thehodge 14y ago
I really hope they can move to bootstrap full / part time and really kickstart it into something that merges bootswatch with wrapbootstrap.. I want to give bootstrap money.. this is a good step :)
coderdude 14y ago
Wow, big news for Bootstrap. I think Matt and Jacob realize the huge impact they've made on the web development community and the potential Bootstrap has to become the jQuery of HTML. New developers may begin to ask, "should I learn HTML or Bootstrap?" It's not a far-fetched idea because the same question is sometimes asked by beginners when "deciding between" jQuery and (vanilla) JavaScript. jQuery plugins are ubiquitous and are a large part its success. Bootsnipp (http://bootsnipp.com/ http://bootsnipp.com/) could be the start of a "markup plugin" community. Bootstrap has an impressive ecosystem for a front-end HTML framework and I think that is what sets them apart from the rest. Good luck, guys!
- dmix 14y ago
  The whole "lets use jQuery without learning Javascript" thing didn't work out so well for the community.
  - 8ig8 14y ago
    Just a data point. I'm not saying I was right, but I learned to use jQuery first, which then lead me to learn vanilla JavaScript. Basic jQuery implementation (carousel, slider, slideshow, etc) was like following a recipe. It got me early gains. I eventually needed more custom work so I then dove (and continue to dive) into JavaScript. I can see the same path for an HTML/CSS beginner.
  - jjjjjosh 14y ago
    If not for jQuery, I'd have probably never learned Javascript, because I would have gotten frustrated with dealing with weird cross-browser gotchas too much to ever get anything done. As I learned I wrote a lot of code I'm not too proud of, looking back on it. But I grew to learn and love Javascript and I honestly have jQuery to thank for that.
    - indiecore 14y ago
      Writing code you aren't proud of is step one towards writing code you are proud of. Of course the problem with that is the code you ARE proud of rapidly becomes the kind you aren't proud of as you learn more.
tylerlh 14y ago
I'm very interested to see what direction the project moves toward, albeit a little bit concerned. Best of luck to Jacob and Mark on their next steps.
Cbasedlifeform 14y ago
Bravo! I realise bootstrap isn't for everyone, but in my humble line of work (specialist web apps in the ----- industry) it is an absolute godsend. Great move away from Twitter. May the winds be forever at your backs.
nodesocket 14y ago
Anybody else notice that the date in the post is set to Sept 29th? Do you think this was supposed to be published tomorrow instead of today?
- pearkes 14y ago
  Probably just a typo, I posted after reading this: https://twitter.com/mdo/status/251806421715390464 https://twitter.com/mdo/status/251806421715390464
mratzloff 14y ago
It's interesting that they both left at the same time. There must have been an internal disagreement about their role in relation to Bootstrap--or perhaps Twitter is just a really sad place to work these days.
- howardr 14y ago
  They didn't. I believe Jacob left few weeks ago.
  - evanwalsh 14y ago
    It'd be one thing if the left between a few years of each other, but to only be separated by a few weeks? The proximity of the events cannot be ignored.
    - danso 14y ago
      Yeah...assuming a standard two weeks notice policy, this doesn't seem to be coincidental
dguaraglia 14y ago
Hm, I'll be the asshole and point out something that to me is kind of obvious: Bootstrap isn't mainstream enough to warrant it's own foundation/organization. Just looking at the caliber of other projects that have gone this way (at the top of my head: Apache, Drupal, Django, Zope...) and looking at Boostrap I don't think it's even close to the userbase/clout needed to pull this off. Even the maintainers of those other projects, successful as they are, tend to have a day job. I don't know, maybe I'm reading too much into this, but I think it might be a little to early to make this move. Just my 2c.
- th 14y ago
  > Bootstrap isn't mainstream enough to warrant it's own foundation/organization What do you mean by "not mainstream enough?" Organizations on Github are simply a convenient place to put one or more projects that are collectively worked on by a group of individuals and do not necessarily have a single core maintainer.
  - stdbrouw 14y ago
    Yeah, that's what a lot of people seem to be missing here: there's mention of an open-source organization on GitHub but no mention that fat and mdo want to start working on Bootstrap full-time and make money off of it.
    - mark_story 14y ago
      I didn't see where in the post, or comments here where that was said. Do you have a source?
      - stdbrouw 14y ago
        The grandparent of my comment, for instance.
  - dguaraglia 14y ago
    Sorry, what I meant by "mainstream" is "have enough of a following". You can say a lot of good things about Bootstrap, and to be fair most of them are probably right, but even when you compare to other jQuery libraries/framework it must have... what, maybe 5% of the users? Also, it's a very young project, it's not an established de facto piece of technology like Django is when it comes to Python web frameworks, Rails to Ruby web frameworks, or Apache is to HTTP servers. Did I make myself a bit clearer? :)
gwf 14y ago
Does this mean we can finally have semicolons?
markdotto 14y ago
Bootstrap creator here. tl;dr: <3, Jacob and I quit Twitter, he's going to Obvious, I'm going to GitHub, it's been amazing, nothing but love, Twitter is great, no ill will, Bootstrap is going to keep going, <3. First, thanks for the love everyone! Jacob and I love seeing people as excited about the future of Bootstrap as us. We're hopeful that this is just the beginning of it. And now, onto answering some of the questions/comments folks have brought up here thus far. Jacob left over a month ago and my last day is next Friday (10/5). He's going to Obvious, and (announcing it here for the first time) I'm going to GitHub. The timing has nothing to do with a disagreement about Bootstrap (seriously, none what so ever), and more to do with us both wanting a change in our own lives for what we do day-to-day. Twitter, the company and product, are both amazing and Jacob and I have worked there for 2.5 years. We're stoked for our next things and we both want to keep working on Bootstrap no matter what. We have an obligation to the community and know it could go much further. (Oh, and yes, I screwed up the date on the post. My bad, yo.) Bootstrap was created by me at Twitter as a means to make better looking internal tools (I wrote about this on A List Apart awhile back: http://www.alistapart.com/articles/building-twitter-bootstrap/ http://www.alistapart.com/articles/building-twitter-bootstra...). It started off as a simple HTML/CSS thing, then Jacob built plugins on top of it, and we open sourced it together. We made it at Twitter, so when we wanted to open source it, we went to Twitter to ensure it was good to go. Thus, it was named Twitter Bootstrap (originally, "Bootstrap, from Twitter" actually). Now, it's back to just "Bootstrap". We don't really think of it as the next jQuery, Django, or Drupal. But you can't deny there is something to front-end frameworks like Bootstrap, and that's what we're excited about. HTML and CSS are the two easiest and most basic building blocks of websites. Everyone knows and uses them, and that's a big part of why Bootstrap has grown so much, and can continue to grow more. No, we weren't "given time" to work on Bootstrap, but that's because it was a project I started on my own to help other engineers. Jacob came in to shape it into a proper open source project and then wrote all the JavaScript plugins (Fun fact: before the jQuery plugins, he wrote a MooTools library on top of it called Tit, which is a type of bird). Anyway, we weren't given time because it wasn't a company priority, naturally, and we're okay with that. We worked on it, at the office or at home, whenever we wanted and folks were generally okay with that as well. The move to making Bootstrap its own project and organization is a joint one, between myself, Jacob, and Twitter's Open Source team (@cra). The transition will take time, but we need to grow Bootstrap beyond the two of us and Twitter, and into something more. There is really sooooo much potential for making better things on the Web, and we're hoping we can keep that up with the help of the community. Anyway, we're both stoked to keep working on Bootstrap. It's a great project that can be so much better, and that's pretty damned awesome to us. Twitter has been amazing for both of us and will continue to down the road. We wish nothing but the best for everyone we've worked with. <3
gt5050 14y ago
It would be great if Bootstrap becomes a part of Apache Software Foundation
NameNickHN 14y ago
I wished there would have been something like Bootstrap 10-12 years ago. As a developer it would have made my life a lot easier. Since design is not really my area of expertise, I often struggled to make a decent backend/administration area for my applications. I started to use Bootstrap recently and can't believe how much fun it is to use and how much quicker I'm getting results.
zaidf 14y ago
Is it only me or does anyone else have an issue with the name "Bootstrap"? I've now gone through multiple tutorials where the term is used to refer to Bootstrap from twitter or the general idea of bootstrapping an app. Now each time I read "bootstrap" I've to establish the context which gets especially tricky when the same documentation or tutorial uses both Bootstrap from Twitter and the verb "to bootstrap".
wilfra 14y ago
Bootstrap badly needs a really good tutorial. I'm thinking of making one, if anybody wants to help out, my email address is in my profile. I was thinking I'd build a simple and attractive site from scratch and make the tutorial a step-by-step of how it was done, so even somebody with no HTML or CSS experience could do it - but also so that even experienced programmers would quickly learn all sorts of cool things that Bootstrap can do. This is how I'm learning Rails right now - the Rails tutorial is amazing. Bootstrap needs something similar.
- joshmlewis 14y ago
  Yes! Bootstrap has some hierarchy things you have to pick up on to get desired effects. Some kind of guide would be nice. I'm not sure if they've updated it since but a few months ago I was building a layout and had to resort to the inspector tool to figure out the exact way they did things in the examples.

412 points by pearkes 14y ago

Just speculating here, but this doesn't exactly sound like it was blessed by Twitter: "Bootstrap will remain a Twitter project on GitHub for the time being, but we've realized the project has grown beyond us and the Twitter brand." If this was something Twitter believed too, I imagine there would be some fanfare around this, Twitter helping FLOSS and all that. More to this story?

k-mcgrady 14y ago
It sounds to me like the two guys left twitter and have decided to continue work on bootstrap. Being open source is there a reason they can't? I don't know much regarding the rules of open source but is it possible they could just fork it and continue where they left off (without twitters blessing)?
- pyre 14y ago
  This is true, but I imagine that they couldn't keep the Bootstrap name, though that's up to Twitter if they want to force the devs out of Bootstrap development and 'defend their mark.'
  - Evbn 14y ago
    It would take 2 days for a fork to replace bootstrap in that case. Look at Hudson vs Jenkins.
_rknLA 14y ago
You have to take a pragmatic perspective here as well. I'd wager that the only reason Bootstrap is a Twitter project to begin with is because of the assignment clause of most employment agreements: If you develop something at a company, the company owns it. I can't imagine any managers at Twitter were sitting there thinking "Hey, I have this great idea that will make us boatloads of money! Let's release an open-source html/css/js framework that makes it super easy for anyone to make a site that looks like Twitter." In all likelihood, it was a project that the developers wrote for internal ops and later attempted (and succeeded) to open source. If you look at the Impact Graph on github (https://github.com/twitter/bootstrap/graphs/impact https://github.com/twitter/bootstrap/graphs/impact), you can see that it's pretty much Jacob and Mark's project. From Twitter's perspective, they can either let Jacob and Mark continue to run with it at no real cost to themselves (since it's open source and they can still use Bootstrap), or they can try to find someone within the organization to continue to maintain it, which has a very real cost -- developer time. Given that they may not find someone to fill that role and that forcing someone into it would probably be bad for the project, I think the decision makes a lot of sense for Twitter.
popee 14y ago
Isn't fork possible solution? Always?

therealarmen 14y ago

Hopefully their newfound time won't lead to unnecessary bloat for what is currently a beautiful framework. Keep it simple, keep it small, keep it clean.

jpadvo 14y ago

This is great -- an open source project started within a company, then spun off into its own independent entity. It's really great to see that. Major kudos to the team and to Twitter for having the generosity to acknowledge a responsibility to the community that extends past their ownership of the project they've created. Thanks. :)

outside1234 14y ago

Bootstrap is a great starting point - please keep up the great work!

jscheel 14y ago

I recall, from an issue I was dealing with, that a year ago Twitter didn't really give @mdo and @fat any time to work on bootstrap during normal business hours... yep, here it is https://github.com/twitter/bootstrap/issues/377#issuecomment-2330571 https://github.com/twitter/bootstrap/issues/377#issuecomment... (edit to fix link)

jaequery 14y ago

great move on their part, there is a huge future ahead of these guys. good luck to them.

yagoogaly 14y ago

With all of the great extensions people have developed for Bootstrap so far, It's clear that they're really on to something. I can't wait to see what direction they take it in after severing ties with Twitter.

thehodge 14y ago

I really hope they can move to bootstrap full / part time and really kickstart it into something that merges bootswatch with wrapbootstrap.. I want to give bootstrap money.. this is a good step :)

coderdude 14y ago

Wow, big news for Bootstrap. I think Matt and Jacob realize the huge impact they've made on the web development community and the potential Bootstrap has to become the jQuery of HTML. New developers may begin to ask, "should I learn HTML or Bootstrap?" It's not a far-fetched idea because the same question is sometimes asked by beginners when "deciding between" jQuery and (vanilla) JavaScript. jQuery plugins are ubiquitous and are a large part its success. Bootsnipp (http://bootsnipp.com/ http://bootsnipp.com/) could be the start of a "markup plugin" community. Bootstrap has an impressive ecosystem for a front-end HTML framework and I think that is what sets them apart from the rest. Good luck, guys!

dmix 14y ago
The whole "lets use jQuery without learning Javascript" thing didn't work out so well for the community.
- 8ig8 14y ago
  Just a data point. I'm not saying I was right, but I learned to use jQuery first, which then lead me to learn vanilla JavaScript. Basic jQuery implementation (carousel, slider, slideshow, etc) was like following a recipe. It got me early gains. I eventually needed more custom work so I then dove (and continue to dive) into JavaScript. I can see the same path for an HTML/CSS beginner.
- jjjjjosh 14y ago
  If not for jQuery, I'd have probably never learned Javascript, because I would have gotten frustrated with dealing with weird cross-browser gotchas too much to ever get anything done. As I learned I wrote a lot of code I'm not too proud of, looking back on it. But I grew to learn and love Javascript and I honestly have jQuery to thank for that.
  - indiecore 14y ago
    Writing code you aren't proud of is step one towards writing code you are proud of. Of course the problem with that is the code you ARE proud of rapidly becomes the kind you aren't proud of as you learn more.

tylerlh 14y ago

I'm very interested to see what direction the project moves toward, albeit a little bit concerned. Best of luck to Jacob and Mark on their next steps.

Cbasedlifeform 14y ago

Bravo! I realise bootstrap isn't for everyone, but in my humble line of work (specialist web apps in the ----- industry) it is an absolute godsend. Great move away from Twitter. May the winds be forever at your backs.

nodesocket 14y ago

Anybody else notice that the date in the post is set to Sept 29th? Do you think this was supposed to be published tomorrow instead of today?

pearkes 14y ago
Probably just a typo, I posted after reading this: https://twitter.com/mdo/status/251806421715390464 https://twitter.com/mdo/status/251806421715390464

mratzloff 14y ago

It's interesting that they both left at the same time. There must have been an internal disagreement about their role in relation to Bootstrap--or perhaps Twitter is just a really sad place to work these days.

howardr 14y ago
They didn't. I believe Jacob left few weeks ago.
- evanwalsh 14y ago
  It'd be one thing if the left between a few years of each other, but to only be separated by a few weeks? The proximity of the events cannot be ignored.
  - danso 14y ago
    Yeah...assuming a standard two weeks notice policy, this doesn't seem to be coincidental

dguaraglia 14y ago

Hm, I'll be the asshole and point out something that to me is kind of obvious: Bootstrap isn't mainstream enough to warrant it's own foundation/organization. Just looking at the caliber of other projects that have gone this way (at the top of my head: Apache, Drupal, Django, Zope...) and looking at Boostrap I don't think it's even close to the userbase/clout needed to pull this off. Even the maintainers of those other projects, successful as they are, tend to have a day job. I don't know, maybe I'm reading too much into this, but I think it might be a little to early to make this move. Just my 2c.

th 14y ago
> Bootstrap isn't mainstream enough to warrant it's own foundation/organization What do you mean by "not mainstream enough?" Organizations on Github are simply a convenient place to put one or more projects that are collectively worked on by a group of individuals and do not necessarily have a single core maintainer.
- stdbrouw 14y ago
  Yeah, that's what a lot of people seem to be missing here: there's mention of an open-source organization on GitHub but no mention that fat and mdo want to start working on Bootstrap full-time and make money off of it.
  - mark_story 14y ago
    I didn't see where in the post, or comments here where that was said. Do you have a source?
    - stdbrouw 14y ago
      The grandparent of my comment, for instance.
- dguaraglia 14y ago
  Sorry, what I meant by "mainstream" is "have enough of a following". You can say a lot of good things about Bootstrap, and to be fair most of them are probably right, but even when you compare to other jQuery libraries/framework it must have... what, maybe 5% of the users? Also, it's a very young project, it's not an established de facto piece of technology like Django is when it comes to Python web frameworks, Rails to Ruby web frameworks, or Apache is to HTTP servers. Did I make myself a bit clearer? :)

gwf 14y ago

Does this mean we can finally have semicolons?

markdotto 14y ago

Bootstrap creator here. tl;dr: <3, Jacob and I quit Twitter, he's going to Obvious, I'm going to GitHub, it's been amazing, nothing but love, Twitter is great, no ill will, Bootstrap is going to keep going, <3. First, thanks for the love everyone! Jacob and I love seeing people as excited about the future of Bootstrap as us. We're hopeful that this is just the beginning of it. And now, onto answering some of the questions/comments folks have brought up here thus far. Jacob left over a month ago and my last day is next Friday (10/5). He's going to Obvious, and (announcing it here for the first time) I'm going to GitHub. The timing has nothing to do with a disagreement about Bootstrap (seriously, none what so ever), and more to do with us both wanting a change in our own lives for what we do day-to-day. Twitter, the company and product, are both amazing and Jacob and I have worked there for 2.5 years. We're stoked for our next things and we both want to keep working on Bootstrap no matter what. We have an obligation to the community and know it could go much further. (Oh, and yes, I screwed up the date on the post. My bad, yo.) Bootstrap was created by me at Twitter as a means to make better looking internal tools (I wrote about this on A List Apart awhile back: http://www.alistapart.com/articles/building-twitter-bootstrap/ http://www.alistapart.com/articles/building-twitter-bootstra...). It started off as a simple HTML/CSS thing, then Jacob built plugins on top of it, and we open sourced it together. We made it at Twitter, so when we wanted to open source it, we went to Twitter to ensure it was good to go. Thus, it was named Twitter Bootstrap (originally, "Bootstrap, from Twitter" actually). Now, it's back to just "Bootstrap". We don't really think of it as the next jQuery, Django, or Drupal. But you can't deny there is something to front-end frameworks like Bootstrap, and that's what we're excited about. HTML and CSS are the two easiest and most basic building blocks of websites. Everyone knows and uses them, and that's a big part of why Bootstrap has grown so much, and can continue to grow more. No, we weren't "given time" to work on Bootstrap, but that's because it was a project I started on my own to help other engineers. Jacob came in to shape it into a proper open source project and then wrote all the JavaScript plugins (Fun fact: before the jQuery plugins, he wrote a MooTools library on top of it called Tit, which is a type of bird). Anyway, we weren't given time because it wasn't a company priority, naturally, and we're okay with that. We worked on it, at the office or at home, whenever we wanted and folks were generally okay with that as well. The move to making Bootstrap its own project and organization is a joint one, between myself, Jacob, and Twitter's Open Source team (@cra). The transition will take time, but we need to grow Bootstrap beyond the two of us and Twitter, and into something more. There is really sooooo much potential for making better things on the Web, and we're hoping we can keep that up with the help of the community. Anyway, we're both stoked to keep working on Bootstrap. It's a great project that can be so much better, and that's pretty damned awesome to us. Twitter has been amazing for both of us and will continue to down the road. We wish nothing but the best for everyone we've worked with. <3

gt5050 14y ago

It would be great if Bootstrap becomes a part of Apache Software Foundation

NameNickHN 14y ago

I wished there would have been something like Bootstrap 10-12 years ago. As a developer it would have made my life a lot easier. Since design is not really my area of expertise, I often struggled to make a decent backend/administration area for my applications. I started to use Bootstrap recently and can't believe how much fun it is to use and how much quicker I'm getting results.

zaidf 14y ago

Is it only me or does anyone else have an issue with the name "Bootstrap"? I've now gone through multiple tutorials where the term is used to refer to Bootstrap from twitter or the general idea of bootstrapping an app. Now each time I read "bootstrap" I've to establish the context which gets especially tricky when the same documentation or tutorial uses both Bootstrap from Twitter and the verb "to bootstrap".

wilfra 14y ago

Bootstrap badly needs a really good tutorial. I'm thinking of making one, if anybody wants to help out, my email address is in my profile. I was thinking I'd build a simple and attractive site from scratch and make the tutorial a step-by-step of how it was done, so even somebody with no HTML or CSS experience could do it - but also so that even experienced programmers would quickly learn all sorts of cool things that Bootstrap can do. This is how I'm learning Rails right now - the Rails tutorial is amazing. Bootstrap needs something similar.

joshmlewis 14y ago
Yes! Bootstrap has some hierarchy things you have to pick up on to get desired effects. Some kind of guide would be nice. I'm not sure if they've updated it since but a few months ago I was building a layout and had to resort to the inspector tool to figure out the exact way they did things in the examples.