> we would've bent over backwards to make sure everyone was happy
Or maybe you wouldn't. I guess it all depends. If you happened to decide the BBC's goals were becoming contradictory to your own then who knows which way you'd bend? The point is YOU would be in a position to say yes or no to their needs, and no offense but to tell a very large company like the BBC, "trust me, I'll make sure you're happy, now build all your web pages on top of my library" is not particularly reassuring.
And I don't think anyone has to be a mindreader to know what you'd say if they submitted a patch that meant you'd have to lose some of the selectors you now support and run more slowly in order to add support for a browser with 1.5% market share.
They looked into it and determined it wasn't cost effective to maintain a parallel fork. Okay, whatever. Their needs are unique and they came up with a unique solution, so what? This isn't a zero sum game.
> C'est la vie.
Indeed. For organizations that don't have to give full support to the same minority browsers that the BBC does, then of course it makes sense to use an off-the-shelf library like JQuery. No one ever suggested otherwise.
I think it's a bit funny that so many here seem to just naturally assume that by creating their own library the BBC have therefore denied JQUERY another badge for their homepage. @adradesign, have you ever considered the possibility that they actually would have gone with moo, or prototype or yui or one of the many other alternatives instead?
As I read it, the point is less about providing more functionality than any existing library and more about tailoring the features that Glow does support to match the very specific requirements of the BBC. (If you happen to think some other library is a better match for your needs then I'm sure the folks at the BBC would urge you use it.) But what would happen if the BBC tied all its web apps to one of those third-party libraries and then that library suddenly announced they were dropping support for some minor browser or screen reader the BBC were mandated to deliver to? They'd end up having to maintain some parallel version modified to match their own particular needs. I hardly see how making the work they've done open source and free for everyone to use they're hurting "the JS world."
Or maybe you wouldn't. I guess it all depends. If you happened to decide the BBC's goals were becoming contradictory to your own then who knows which way you'd bend? The point is YOU would be in a position to say yes or no to their needs, and no offense but to tell a very large company like the BBC, "trust me, I'll make sure you're happy, now build all your web pages on top of my library" is not particularly reassuring.
And I don't think anyone has to be a mindreader to know what you'd say if they submitted a patch that meant you'd have to lose some of the selectors you now support and run more slowly in order to add support for a browser with 1.5% market share.
They looked into it and determined it wasn't cost effective to maintain a parallel fork. Okay, whatever. Their needs are unique and they came up with a unique solution, so what? This isn't a zero sum game.
> C'est la vie.
Indeed. For organizations that don't have to give full support to the same minority browsers that the BBC does, then of course it makes sense to use an off-the-shelf library like JQuery. No one ever suggested otherwise.