Almost sounds like jack2 :)
Almost. But it has some important differences, which are exactly the topic here:
1) The author of JACK Paul Davis, was positive about JACK2 in the early stage of it's
development. It sounded like a good idea to him and he supported the idea. That could be
seen as a update indeed, not as a fork.
2) The role of the linuxaudio consortium and it's moderators.
Linuxaudio.org
didn't release new-JACK as new official release by
linuxaudio.org, against the will of
the original JACK author Paul Davis and a part of the community.