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Comment by colesantiago | Hacker News Reader

Why would React be impacted? React is open source no? Anybody can contribute to React.

That's not how open source works. Open source projects don't just float by themselves in the open source cosmos. There's still people behind them.

Maintainers and major contributors are from Facebook. You can't "just fork" the monstrosity that React is and magically keep it moving at the same pace.

React is small compared to some things that have been forked. WebKit, OpenOffice, and the BSD operating systems come to mind. And who says it has to be in constant development? Freeze it and fix it, then worry about new features.

Most of those forks have big companies sponsoring the work.

It is both true that it not impossible that a fork of React could be succesful; and that there is a reason React "would be impacted" by layoffs.

For the second, the question "Why would React be impacted by layoffs if it's open source", the answer is obviously: It would be impacted if people who were getting paid to work on it have been laid off. Seems straightforward. Bigger impact depending on number and roles of such people.

WebKit was forked from KHTML by huge company that employed people to work on it. And was later forked again into Blink by another huge company that employs people to work on it.

Yes you can.

Anybody _can_ contribute to React. Facebook employees most of the devs who _do_ contribute to React.

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