Re: What counts as a fork?

[steve donovan <steve.j.donovan@...>]

On Wed, Nov 29, 2017 at 11:59 AM, Paige DePol <lual@serfnet.org> wrote:
> I would have to agree, I don't count successors to a previous version of
> software as being a fork.

Now, I remember this word 'fork' before Github, and it was considered
the Nuclear Option. E.g. when GCC forked just before the millenium,
and the old fork lost. People got seriously upset about this kind of
thing.

Github re-used and re-purposed the word, rather like how Facebook
changed the operational meaning of 'friend'.  Nowadays, having lots of
'forks' of your Github project is a measure of success!

Just as the old meaning of 'friend' remains important, we should
remember the history of the term. Personally, I don't think it a Bad
thing, sometimes people need to try out new things. As long as credit
to the original codebase is always given, both in the spirit and the
letter of the license.