Differences between version 6 and predecessor to the previous major change of Fork.
Other diffs: Previous Revision, Previous Author, or view the Annotated Edit History
| Newer page: | version 6 | Last edited on Monday, June 25, 2007 11:40:35 am | by LawrenceDoliveiro | Revert |
| Older page: | version 5 | Last edited on Wednesday, October 15, 2003 12:23:07 pm | by StuartYeates | Revert |
@@ -1,16 +1,23 @@
!!!1. A split or divergence in the source code.
-When SourceCode is forked, two or more groups, with different visions, develop the code to their own ends. The NetworkEffect is a powerful deterient
to forking, since halving the number of developers working on the source for a project more than halves the productivity of each group. In most cases all but one of the forks eventually withers and dies, ironically leaving the remaining fork with a much more clearly defined vision.
+When SourceCode is forked, two or more groups, with different visions, develop the code to their own ends. The NetworkEffect is a powerful deterrent
to forking, since halving the number of developers working on the source for a project more than halves the productivity of each group. In most (though not all)
cases all but one of the forks eventually withers and dies, ironically leaving the remaining fork with a much more clearly defined vision.
Well-known examples include
* [GCC] and egcs (egcs eventually became the new "official" gcc)
* [Mandrake] and RedHat (I think Mandrake was originally RedHat with [KDE]?)
-* [Emacs] and XEmacs
-* ...
+* [Emacs] and XEmacs, both branches of which continue to thrive to this day.
+* XFree86 and XOrg, where an unpopular change to the licensing terms of the former caused a wholesale defection of developers, distributors and users to the latter
.
+
+Some interesting analyses of the pros and cons of forking are:
+
+* Rick Moen's [Fear of Forking|http://linuxmafia
.com/faq/Licensing_and_Law/forking
.html], subtitled "Why Linux Won't Work, And why being able to fork is still A Good Thing."
+* ["Forking: it could even happen to you"|http://www.newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=00/10/24/0211204] by Tina Gasperson at NewsForge.
+* [Appendix A.6|http://www.dwheeler.com/oss_fs_why.html#forking] of David Wheeler's ["Why Open Source/Free Software?"|http://www.dwheeler.com/oss_fs_why.html] essay.
+
See also [OpenSource]
!!!2. A system call for creating a new process
see fork(2)
the fork system call is fun, it returns twice... once in each different process. it returns 0 to the child, and the pid of the child to the parent. Very funky :)
