Many of the forks weren't/aren't serious anyway and the majority died out pretty soon, they shouldn't be seen as competition or wasted time. If you just want to

Many of the forks weren't/aren't serious anyway and the majority died out pretty soon, they shouldn't be seen as competition or wasted time. If you just want to experiment and don't want to pay attention to some community guidelines etc., then forking is better. It is exactly this freedom I love about Linux or open source in general.