[LAD] What if a fork is not a fork?

Raymond Martin laseray at gmail.com
Sat Jan 29 16:15:10 UTC 2011


On January 29, 2011 10:17:36 am Jens M Andreasen wrote:
> On Thu, 2011-01-27 at 22:05 +0200, Vytautas Jancauskas wrote:
> >         What if I "fork" a project because I think it gives me a good
> >         starting point
> >         or base for what I want to do but the direction I intend to
> >         take things will
> >         result in a completely different sort of program to the one I
> >         forked?
> 
> a) We do not know neither your direction nor intend.
> b) Is the program really completely different - according to who?
> c) Because of a and b there is no c.
> 
> /j
> 
> >         Would another term be useful?

Never mind any of the hand waving going on about forks, giving credit, etc.
Stick to the license, that is all that is required of you.

There is a saying "never explain, your friends don't need it and your enemies 
won't believe you anyway".

If you want to fork, just fork. It is your irrevocable right to do so. You do 
not owe anyone an explanation, ever. Just stick to the letter of the licenses.
Nothing more is required of you.

Everything else said about this topic is just noise by people who do not 
understand the purpose of FOSS. They think they do, but they are completely 
wrong if they have anything to say that imputes some kind of emotionality into 
it.

Once you give away your code under FOSS it does not belong to you anymore (in 
that particular form) and you do so (if you are intelligent) with full 
knowledge of what you are doing and all the implications of it. Basically, 
take responsibility, read the licenses properly, understand their far reaching 
purpose, and relinquish any kind of ownership type attitudes for the greater 
good.

I have forked other projects before and tried to cooperate, follow licenses, 
only to have those projects act very territorial and not in the proper spirit 
of FOSS.

Just fork anyway you like. It is best not to even bother letting the other 
project know what you are doing, it is not their business since they have 
freely chosen to go the FOSS way. Any complaining after the fact is just 
childish and stupid.

Raymond






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