The JQuery Foundation is morphing into the JS Foundation to provide mentoring and technical governance for a multitude of JavaScript-based open source development projects.

The JS Foundation is a project of the Linux Foundation and has backing from organizations, including IBM, Samsung, and Sauce Labs. It will take over current jQuery Foundation projects and add a few more, said Kris Borchers, JS Foundation executive director.

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"We've been supporting a lot more than jQuery for a long time, so the rebrand is to better reflect that," said Borchers, who had been executive director of jQuery Foundation. "And to also signal this effort to start creating a center of gravity for open source JavaScript."

JS Foundation will cultivate best practices among JavaScript application and server-side projects, and it will oversee such projects as the jQuery JavaScript library, the Appium testing automation framework, Dojo Toolkit, the ESLint linting utility, the JerryScript lightweight JavaScript engine, and the Mocha testing framework. All told, 23 projects will be under the foundation's umbrella at the outset, including new names that had not been part of jQuery Foundation.

The Node.js Foundation, in charge of the server-side Node.js JavaScript platform, anticipates partnering with the new foundation. "The JS Foundation is creating a center of gravity for the open source JavaScript ecosystem," said Mikeal Rogers, community manager of Node.js Foundation. The JS Foundation, he said, will drive broad adoption and ongoing development of key JavaScript solutions and related technologies, and it will facilitate collaboration within the JavaScript development community.

A technical advisory committee will be formed, featuring representatives from member organizations, the projects themselves, the Node.js Foundation, and the JavaScript community, to provide technical guidance and decide which new projects to adopt. "In general, we're open to any project within the JavaScript ecosystem applying to join," Borchers said. There will be opportunities for collaboration among projects as well.

Member organizations will fund the foundation, and a board of directors will be seated. While the foundation is not assuming any kind of jurisdiction over ECMAScript, the official specification underlying JavaScript, it has representatives on the ECMA committee that does develop the specification. Founding members of the foundation include IBM, Samsung, Sauce Labs, Bocoup, Ripple, Sense Tecnic Systems, SitePen, StackPath, the University of Westminster, and WebsiteSetup.

Below is the full list of JS Foundation projects at launch.