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> What is the other meaning of fork? The older, still in use today meaning is what happened when Oracle bought MySQL and ruined it. People forked it and now we

by fooqux 2y ago

> What is the other meaning of fork? The older, still in use today meaning is what happened when Oracle bought MySQL and ruined it. People forked it and now we have MariaDB. Basically, it means a fork in the code base and now there are two separate projects.

simoncion 2y ago
Yes. Until Github came along, "Creating a copy of software for your own personal use" had never been widely-accepted definition of the word "fork" in the context of software development. Forking a project has always involved independent publication and maintenance of said project.
- bee_rider 2y ago
  The typical way of copying a project for your own personal use on GitHub involves publishing that copy on GitHub. So, it is a real fork—maybe not a well maintained one, or one that the author is particularly excited about, though!
thomastjeffery 2y ago
OK, but that's still not different. When you fork a project on GitHub, that literally creates a parallel working history, and publishes it under your username. That's what GitHub means by "fork". So what's the other definition?
- AshamedCaptain 2y ago
  Many years ago I would have called that "mirroring", which is definitely not forking.
  - thomastjeffery 2y ago
    OK, but a mirror only exists to share an exact (hopefully up-to-date) copy of the repo. So we are just moving the goalpost from the moment you create the fork to the moment you edit it. Did that really change anything? I don't think so.
    - tnh 2y ago
      You can Zeno's-paradox-away the distinction between a bathtub and a kitchen sink, but that doesn't make them the same thing. This sort of argument change how people understand words, and it also doesn't change how lawyers interpret laws nearly as often as people think. It's still fun, though!
homebrewer 2y ago
> Oracle bought MySQL and ruined it By "ruined" you must mean "solved decades-long issues and turned it into a real database", or we're talking about two different projects. https://dev.mysql.com/blog-archive/the-complete-list-of-new-features-in-mysql-8-0/ https://dev.mysql.com/blog-archive/the-complete-list-of-new-... https://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/8.4/en/mysql-nutshell.html https://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/8.4/en/mysql-nutshell.html Do note that the largest users (like GitHub and Facebook) still use the original MySQL, and AFAIK have no plans to abandon it.

by fooqux 2y ago

simoncion 2y ago

Yes. Until Github came along, "Creating a copy of software for your own personal use" had never been widely-accepted definition of the word "fork" in the context of software development. Forking a project has always involved independent publication and maintenance of said project.

bee_rider 2y ago
The typical way of copying a project for your own personal use on GitHub involves publishing that copy on GitHub. So, it is a real fork—maybe not a well maintained one, or one that the author is particularly excited about, though!

thomastjeffery 2y ago

OK, but that's still not different. When you fork a project on GitHub, that literally creates a parallel working history, and publishes it under your username. That's what GitHub means by "fork". So what's the other definition?

AshamedCaptain 2y ago
Many years ago I would have called that "mirroring", which is definitely not forking.
- thomastjeffery 2y ago
  OK, but a mirror only exists to share an exact (hopefully up-to-date) copy of the repo. So we are just moving the goalpost from the moment you create the fork to the moment you edit it. Did that really change anything? I don't think so.
  - tnh 2y ago
    You can Zeno's-paradox-away the distinction between a bathtub and a kitchen sink, but that doesn't make them the same thing. This sort of argument change how people understand words, and it also doesn't change how lawyers interpret laws nearly as often as people think. It's still fun, though!

homebrewer 2y ago

> Oracle bought MySQL and ruined it By "ruined" you must mean "solved decades-long issues and turned it into a real database", or we're talking about two different projects. https://dev.mysql.com/blog-archive/the-complete-list-of-new-features-in-mysql-8-0/ https://dev.mysql.com/blog-archive/the-complete-list-of-new-... https://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/8.4/en/mysql-nutshell.html https://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/8.4/en/mysql-nutshell.html Do note that the largest users (like GitHub and Facebook) still use the original MySQL, and AFAIK have no plans to abandon it.