Meta is moving React to a new foundation hosted by the Linux Foundation, making one of the world's most popular web frameworks officially independent from its corporate parent. This is a big deal for the millions of developers who build on React.

Let me explain why this matters beyond the corporate governance stuff.

React, along with React Native and JSX, is no longer owned by Meta. Ownership has transferred to the React Foundation, an independent entity announced in October 2025 and officially launched on February 24, 2026. The foundation is hosted by the Linux Foundation, which provides the governance infrastructure.

The foundation board includes eight platinum founding members: Amazon, Callstack, Expo, Huawei, Meta, Microsoft, Software Mansion, and Vercel. Meta remains a member but no longer owns the project.

Here's the critical distinction: technical governance is separated from the foundation board. React's actual development direction isn't controlled by the corporate board members. It remains in the hands of active contributors and maintainers through a provisional leadership council that's still being finalized.

That separation matters enormously. It means Meta can't unilaterally change React's direction even though they created it. It means the other corporate members can't gang up and push the project in directions that serve their business interests over developer needs. Technical decisions stay with the people actually building the framework.

So what changes for developers? Not much, immediately.

React's development continues. The same core team is working on it. The roadmap doesn't suddenly shift. Existing codebases don't need changes. The APIs don't change. Your apps keep working.

What does change is the long-term governance structure. Meta built React for Facebook's needs, then open-sourced it. That's been great for the ecosystem, but it always came with the implicit understanding that if Meta's priorities shifted, React's priorities might shift too.

Now React has independence. If Meta decides to move on from React internally (unlikely, but possible), the project continues. If Meta faces business challenges or changes strategic direction, React doesn't get caught in that.

This model—successful open source project spun out to an independent foundation—is becoming the standard playbook for big tech's open source contributions. Kubernetes went to the Cloud Native Computing Foundation. TensorFlow has deep ties to the Linux Foundation AI projects. Now React is following the same path.

Why? Because adoption increases when developers trust that the project won't disappear or pivot based on a single company's business needs. Enterprises are more comfortable building on React when it's governed by a foundation with multiple stakeholders than when it's a Meta project that happens to be open source.

For Meta, this is actually smart strategy. They benefit from React's ecosystem regardless of who owns the trademark. By giving it independence, they increase trust and adoption, which means more developers building tools and libraries that Meta can use. They keep a board seat to ensure their interests are represented, but they offload governance complexity.

For other corporate members—Amazon, Microsoft, Vercel—they get a seat at the table for a framework they're already heavily invested in. Vercel's entire business is built around React. Microsoft uses it extensively. Having formal governance input is worth the foundation membership cost.

What to watch for: how the technical governance council evolves. The separation between corporate board and technical leadership is great in theory, but it needs clear processes to work in practice. Will technical decisions genuinely be independent, or will corporate influence creep in?

Also watch the ecosystem support programs the foundation is developing. If they provide grants, infrastructure, or other support to React ecosystem projects, that could accelerate development of tools and libraries that make React more powerful.

And finally, watch whether this becomes the template for other Meta open source projects. PyTorch? GraphQL? If the React Foundation model works well, we might see more Meta projects follow the same path.

The technology isn't changing. React is still React. But the governance change matters for anyone who's building their career or company on this framework.

Independence from Meta means React's future is more predictable and less dependent on a single company's strategic whims. For the millions of developers who build with React daily, that's a meaningful improvement in long-term stability.

And for the industry, it's another data point suggesting that the most successful open source projects eventually need independent governance structures. Corporate-led open source can bootstrap a project, but foundation-led governance is how you build lasting ecosystems.

Welcome to the foundation era, React. Let's see what you build next.