Referencing javascript libraries locally or externally?
<p>We are currently developing an ASP.NET MVC application which will be deployed on a corporate intranet, with a slightly-modified customer facing version available on the public internet.</p>

<p>We're making use of a number of external javascript libraries (e.g. jQuery) and a discussion has come up regarding referencing the libraries - should we reference them from an external source (e.g. via the Google load jQuery method) or keep our own version locally and reference from there?</p>

<p>The project manager is a little concerned about having a 'dependency' on Google (or whoever) if we reference from there, and thinks that having our own copy of the library makes us more independent. On the other hand, I have heard there are a number of advantages to letting someone else host the library - for example, they handle versioning for us, Google aren't going anywhere anytime soon...</p>

<p>(for the purpose of the discussion assume the intranet we're hosting on has external access - obviously if it turns out it doesn't the decision is very much made for us!)</p>

<p>So. Does this matter? And if so, what should we do and why?</p>

<p>(I appreciate this is subjective - but it would be very useful to get advice from anyone with experience or thoughts on the matter. Not sure if this is a candidate for community wiki or not, let me know if I should have put it there and I'll know for future!)</p>

<p>Thanks :)</p>
