Happy Birthday racletteJS!

Happy Birthday, racletteJS! 🥳🧡

In August, a lot of our employees celebrate their birthdays. We could now add one of those jokes about the cozy Christmas season here (if you know what I mean ;)).

But it’s not just the people who have a birthday.

Because exactly one year ago, on August 28th, 2025, racletteJS officially went open source! 🥳

 

It all began in December.

What makes this particularly funny is looking at the dates in the history of raclette.

On December 11th, 2024, the idea of raclette was born. There was already code before that, some of it dating back to 2023. But what racletteJS is today – a modular framework – that was the idea that started on that day.

And a little over nine months later, it was born and we shared it with everyone.

Those were nine intense months. Work had already gone into this project since 2023, and getting used to the idea of open-sourcing it was, to put it mildly, pretty damn difficult.

 

What a pregnancy!

So during the first month(s), we did a lot of thinking of our own. We shared our plan and goals with others and got a lot of positive feedback, especially from companies that had already gone down this (open) road.

Then came many coding-heavy months.

Because we took something that can probably best be described as a massive boilerplate for platform solutions and heavily abstracted a whole lot of functionality from it.

The goal was to turn it into a modular framework. And for that, the base simply cannot bring too much stuff with it.

 

"When is it going to be open source?"

Some month after our official announcement, the critical voices around us were getting louder.

At that point, we were three full-time developers.

Relax! We’re already working on it!

Not to mention all the side-stuff: Branding, colors, the website, an official documentation, marketing… 🤯 

(And this all with basically no money to spend)

 

The due date had arrived.

But then, finally, with a lot of nervousness and the question "Can we really publish this code like THIS?" , the deadline eventually arrived and that question was no longer allowed to be asked.

And just like this, the code moved from our private repository to the public GitLab.

Done. 

It was actually rather unspectacular.

Proposal: GitLab should add a confetti animation whenever you make a repository public.

 

Born into the wild.

But for us, it was still a massive milestone. If not the biggest one.

It’s a path that not many companies take, but one that is aligned with our values and ideals from beginning to end. A step we took with a lot of pride – and one we’re still proud of today.

How another entire year could have passed since then – no idea.

Time just flew by.

 

So it’s even nicer to be able to say:

Happy 1st Birthday, racletteJS. 🧡

You are basically our baby!

And we’re looking forward to all the great works (in the sense that software is art) that will still be created thanks to you.

 

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And while birthdays usually mean looking back at the year that has passed, we did things a little differently this time.

Instead, you got a glimpse into the time before the birth.

We’ll simply catch up on the review of racletteJS’s first year of life in the next one. 

So look forward to the next newsletter!

 

The Cheesy People 🧀