<i>to take things in their own direction</i><p>And there is evidence that this is true.  Node itself has had to make major changes to it&#x27;s own code to account for unilateral V8 changes, and node really has had no choice but to suck it up and make corresponding changes.  They <i>could</i> fork V8, but it&#x27;s not likely since Google is always going to be able to throw more resources at it.