https://gsap.com/community/standard-license/
Basically freeware with express prohibitions on competing with Webflow.
For example GSAP will now never make its way into Figma or Framer which is a staple of the design workflows of many teams. This move by Webflow makes GSAP a line of demarkation between Figma-based workflows, Framer-based workflows, and Webflow-based workflows.
Any momentum the library might have had is now skewered by these limitations which will surely create demand for more different animation libraries to exist within other walled gardens.
The same happened to Vercel & Next.js which now seems to be powering the return of Vite & CSR.
Now that said, I'd never heard of this library until this announcement, and I don't know much about its role in the javascript ecosystem, but I can't say that the trend towards M&A kingdoms in the open source community delights me.
Now I'm looking at AnimeJS and my mind is properly blown, looks even better.
Jack, if you're reading, I'm sorry I made fun of the green sock brand back in the Kirupa days!
(GS in GSAP stands for Green Sock)
It's very typical for someone to look at something that is only 95% perfect and declare that they could replace it in a few days or weeks, while simply refusing to learn from history (or Joel Spolsky's warnings against the big rewrite).
Your quote has no bearing in this context. We aren't talking about rewriting our projects, we're talking about purposely choosing open and free tools.
Also GSAP isn't even the leading animation library in JS ecosystem, thankfully.
I'm not trying to be argumentative so much as point out that different people/companies have different goals, motivations and values. There are many stops between avoidance and zealotry.
For the people/companies who were happy to pay for Greensock and happier to use it for free-as-in-beer, clearly there is something there which speaks to them regardless of how it is licensed. It's important to remember that freedom means people can absolutely choose a paid product, and that's no moral or ethical lapse but often an educated decision.
I don’t want software to get corrupted by financialization. This is why so many people are passionate about open source, it also leads us to the next phase of this battle where software patents are made obsolete because it’s all mathematics and you shouldn’t be able to patent mathematical systems.
For dynamic animations gasp is great as you just code the animation in js making it a perfect fit for the web. The creation process can be quite cumbersome though.
LLMs are pretty good at this stuff too - just ask the LLM to use one of these resources when making your thing.
Also wanted to keep a bunch of animations on different computers around the world in sync to within ~30ms. Ended up building this library: https://monadical-sas.github.io/redux-time/
Wasn’t GSAP already free and open source? I remember seeing it years ago!
Is this more capitalism doublespeak?
While free as in beer is welcome, in a past life I was happy to pay to be able to access such a powerful toolkit.
Zekio•9mo ago