Vue Project Launches Community Campaign on OpenCollective

With the recent news that WordPress is abandoning React due to its BSD + Patents license, core contributors are now revisiting the discussion of the merits of other frameworks. Gutenberg development is currently on hold until a new library is chosen to replace React, and selection is likely to be imminent to prevent further delay.

Vue is once again a strong contender with a recent surge in enthusiastic support in discussions on GitHub, Mullenweg’s announcement, and social media posts. One of the chief concerns WordPress core contributors had regarding Vue in previous discussions was the longevity of the project and its dependence on creator Evan You, who has historically done most of the development.

The Vue project has recently been taking steps to mitigate this drawback. Earlier this week You announced that Vue is now accepting financial support on OpenCollective, a platform for funding open source projects in a transparent way. You already has a successful Patreon campaign where contributors are paying $8,815 per month to support his work on Vue, but the new OpenCollective account will support the work of core contributors and community events.

“When I started the Patreon campaign, the primary goal was providing myself with enough income so that I can work on Vue full-time,” You said. “Today, as the Vue community grows, there are more and more contributions from the community, and OpenCollective’s transparent expense model could help us scale the financial contributions beyond a single developer.”

Just four days after launching, Vue already has an estimated annual budget of $9,895 on its OpenCollective account. You is still independently accepting contributions on Patreon to fund his full-time work on the project.

Preact, the other leading contender WordPress core contributors are considering, has had an account on OpenCollective since late 2016. Backers and sponsors have contributed to a $16,091 estimated annual budget for the project.

Both Vue and Preact have growing networks of financial supporters and are not heavily influenced by a single corporation’s interests. WordPress core contributors continue to discuss the merits and drawbacks of the two frameworks on various places around the web, but the discussion is somewhat scattered and it’s difficult for participants to know where their feedback will receive consideration.

“The main options are actually all pretty good, and we’d probably be fine going with any of them, which is makes it a tough decision — objectively and technically there isn’t one clear without-a-doubt winner,” Matt Mullenweg said today in WordPress’ #core-js Slack channel.

An updated post detailing the frameworks and technical considerations that contributors are now examining has yet to be published to the make/wordpress.org development blog. Having communication throughout the process of selecting the framework, instead of announcing it after the decision, would go a long way towards keeping the community informed and involved. We’ll be following the public discussion as it develops.