AngularJS was game changer web framework for building single page web applications. It ruled the web until it didn't. It had its own merits and demerits and the developers used it until something better came along. AngularJS was a complete framework, it was strong in certain aspects and had weaknesses in some. But then Facebook released React. It was not a full fledged framework like AngularJS, it was a library that did one thing, and did it right - and the developers loved it. A part of React's success, ignoring for a while that Facebook backs it, was that it didn't dictate any rules to how you should structure your application. It gave the developers freedom back to craft the framework of their application on their own, and hence required less learning curve to get started with it. AngularJS did more and was okay at it, ReactJS did one thing and it was way better at it.
A lot of controversy revoled around React's adoption because of certain clause in its license. To use React you had to agree that you couldn't sue Facebook in the court of law for any infringement of patents and that using their library automatically granted Facebook access to use your patents. Startups had no problem with these clauses but major corporations had barred themself from using it. Many startups didn't get acquired by big companies just because they were using React. React had kept to its stance that those clauses were only there to protect the company from patent trolls but still major companies had problem adopting it. Despite all this, something came the last month from Facebook that won hearts back.
Comes September 22, 2017 the day when Facebook re-licenses React (and some other great libraries) under more permissive MIT License. Facebook for years of defending its old license terms gave up on its stance. There was a very unlikely hero behind whose stance of not using the library under the old clauses, broke Facebook's heart and they finally melted to public demand. No one could change Facebook's mind, not even Apache barring its usage in its projects. The hero who changed Facebook's mind was Wordpress. For better or worse, Wordpress rules the web. When they decided not to use it, Facebook could no longer ignore it. Many of you might hate Wordpress to bones, but the freedom for React is owed to Wordpress and we thank both of them for it.
React is now out of the cage. It is now ready to conquer the Internet. Nothing is stopping you from harnessing the power of this amazing library now.
Happy coding :)
