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"Fork" is a poor choice of verb for what I think he is describing/dvcs/github allows. More like experimental branch this dudes gonna do his thing on and if it'
by njharman 17y ago
"Fork" is a poor choice of verb for what I think he is describing/dvcs/github allows. More like experimental branch this dudes gonna do his thing on and if it's good we'll absorb it into the "main" project. Which, btw, has been going on forever, git[hub] just makes it easier.
A Fork means there's irreconcilable differences and the dev base is splitting into 2-3 camps, old mainline, new forkers, people who leave in disgust over lack of coop.
- samdk 17y ago'Fork' isn't his choice of word. On github, a fork is just your version of someone else's repository.
- JulianMorrison 17y agoSure, it used to mean that, in the days of CVS. But a github-style fork is a fully independent project in theory, it could go anywhere. It doesn't have to reintegrate. It might out-speed the main project and come to replace it. It might change emphasis and shoot off on a tangent. It's not really the same thing as having a copy of the source and making some private changes.
- schacon 17y ago"fork" is what we use to describe a user-branch of a project, where another user has write access to their own fork of the project. other dvcs hosts use the term 'fork' to describe this as well, such as BitBucket and MicroSofts CodePlex. Google Code has a similar concept but they call them 'clone's. I think many people now consider "fork" a good thing, not an irreconcilable branch of the codebase.