While all of this is exemplary in that it stresses reasonableness and thoughtfulness, it dresses up the troubling parts of how decisions have been made.

> "I wouldn't worry too much about this decision"

The impression I get here and from other comments made by other core developers is this:

"Don't worry your pretty heads about how core developers chose to alter the project, that's of no concern to you"

It is disingeneous to claim that the tooling choices made in core merely impact the work of core developers and yet this is repeatedly how some have framed this.

We know that we have choices that raise the barrier entry more than is the case with other choices. We can speculate that raising this barrier may deter future contributors and those simply trying to grapple with core code as they learn how it works. The latter group seems to have had no representative in this debate because they are taken to be the unimportant. How learnable and accessible core code is matters. There is should be no jump in complexity just because something is core code vs a plugin or theme.

I have seen very few if any core developers really seem concerned about this beyond lip service. Instead we get something along the lines of 'tough shit' because perceived level of complexity that is being introduced just doesn't register as such or is deemed a reality of life in JS (and after all if it's good enough for a big chunk of the JS community...).

Concerns from some of our best educators about the technical difficulty of React might have been noted but clearly haven't factored in much.

And this is not a necessarily a choice about mere technical merits of tools either, yet we continue to be told it is. The fact that this decision is framed as such (a technical decision) is designed to divert attention from other aspects. If the only blocker was the license, it stands to reason that most in core were fine with the ideological fitness of React, being a FB project, which to be quite frank is a despicable entity not least for undermining the open web and profiting off the demolition of democracy and privacy.

And think about this for minute. Before the license debacle, React had been annointed and would have been annointed sooner if not for objections made largely by others. If there had been little noise about the license and the Apache foundation hadn't ruled against React, we'd have been apparently content to go along with it. It appears it was the noise that bothered core devs & Matt, not the license itself or why the license was there in the first place (the artifact of a corporation defending its interests).

This too me is alarming, because it means at the very heart of WordPress our compass was aligned in violent opposition to things that were supposed to be important. Inclusiveness, a level playing field, commitment to the values of an OSS movement and a general aim to endeveour to empower its users.

Meanwhile there had been little explanation why React was a special technical fit for WordPress - it simply owned the matter by being the dominant tool in use. Yet we're instructed to believe that React was the technically superior choice (as if self evident). Instead we got marginal/weak arguments about bus factor and the sheer size of an ecosystem.

While I am glad that there seems to be a lot of focus on making things framework interchangeable, while thought goes into making an unopionated API to interface with, it does not address most of the concerns of using React in the first place.

Core developers and Matt should be the principal decision makers. It's not something I quarrel with, I think this type of meritocracy has served WordPress very well. But it also means we trust you to make decisions that serve the whole community in alignment with the project. I have never doubted that decision making process until React came along. I have also taken note that many core developers feel like vocal developers are impinging on their territory without the necessary credentials, inviting mockery and sneers for expressing views and preferences. I think this has been one of the most disappointing things about this process.

I'm pretty sure FB's move to go with MIT was very much because WP, Matt & co tipped the balance. It's a big win for the OSS community. But I hope this doesn't turn in to a back patting exercise in which we happily U-turn and double down on pre-made tooling choices that formalise a tie between WordPress and FB while rendering core code even less approachable than it already was.