8 ms·

I find the title of this submission slightly misleading, as I thought that there can't be something like a hostile fork. FYI: The title has been updated, see:

by timdaub 12y ago

I find the title of this submission slightly misleading, as I thought that there can't be something like a hostile fork. FYI: The title has been updated, see: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9334255 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9334255

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
abstractbeliefs 12y ago
Forking these days is mainly friendly because of the ecosystem that Git has fostered, but until relatively recently, forking was generally hostile, to force development to move in a certain direction away from the original intent. In this case, Arduino SRL (formerly Smart Projects, the arduino manufacturing spinoff) has forked the IDE, and significantly up-revved the version number to try and get people to move away from the original team's IDE. See also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fork_(software_development) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fork_(software_development)
- amyjess 12y ago
  Hmm... I'm trying to think of any non-hostile forks that existed before the GitHub era. Only one I can think of off the top of my head is egcs forking off gcc so devs have a place to put their experimental branches.
  - spb 12y ago
    ffmpeg and libav - maybe not "before" the GitHub era, but outside it.
  - mcguire 12y ago
    Technically, that was one of the more hostile forks; EGCS developers were very unhappy that gcc wasn't moving fast enough and in the direction they wanted. They put their code where their mouths were. The only significant, more-hostile fork that I know of is Emacs/XEmacs. I can't think of any project names at the moment, but I believe that most of the pre-Github "hostile" "forks" were due to a package being abandoned.
    - amyjess 12y ago
      That's what I'd heard at first, but I remember being corrected and told that it was much friendlier than the public assumed, and it was basically treated as gcc's unstable branch. Also, remember that egcs started out as a merger of several devs' individual experimental forks containing stuff like new frontends, new architectures, and optimizations for specific processors. The projects that went into egcs were all pre-existing projects; egcs was just a consolidation.
  - orclev 12y ago
    All the competing Unix forks? The infighting in the Unix world and the blatant attempts to break compatibility with each other pretty much killed Unix, about the only thing keeping it limping along any more is all the effort that's been put into OpenBSD and FreeBSD, and the commercial backing for Solaris. Edit: Just realized you said non-hostile. Yeah, not so much, prior to GitHub most forks that weren't to try to take ownership were either experimental in nature, to continue development on an abandoned project, or in order to develop some features that the original authors disagreed with (semi-hostile). I'm not sure you can classify picking up a dead project as a hostile action, but it isn't exactly benign either. As for experimental branches those were usually non-hostile, but at the same time if they bore fruit they would typically get merged back into the upstream so not really a fork in the truest sense of the word, but more like a really long running branch.
bryanlarsen 12y ago
There have been lawsuits filed over this fork.
hamandcheese 12y ago
The fact that it was reuploaded to github rather than forked on github seems a bit disingenuous to me.
- 3JPLW 12y ago
  Even if you forked on GitHub, you can ask the staff to "detach" or "extract" your fork from the existing network. Detaching only un-forks your repo, whereas extracting makes your fork the new root and preserves any sub-forks thereof. They will happily do it upon request.
  - jarin 12y ago
    Ooh, thanks for posting this. I have a project that I forked so I could use the base code from it, but it really doesn't make sense as a fork and confuses people. (It's a deployment plugin, and my fork just installs a different piece of software than the original)
tinco 12y ago
A hostile fork is when a project is forked by people with the aim to supplant the original project without the involvement (of the majority/leader) of the original team. I think the IO.JS vs. Node.JS thing could be named a hostile fork, as could the MySQL vs. MariaDB situation.
- SmellyGeekBoy 12y ago
  See also: OpenOffice vs. LibreOffice
  - soneil 12y ago
    This is pretty close - now imagine if both OOo and LO both had legitimate claims to the OOo trademark, and both tried to use them - leaving both versions named OOo with merely competing versioning. Nothing good can come of this. (Especially for a project such as Arduino, which really really doesn't compete on technology, but survives on their community userbase. Bringing this tit-for-tat public risks alienating the only feature they have.)
  - __david__ 12y ago
    And ffmpeg vs. libav
sctb 12y ago
We updated the title from "Arduino is undergoing a hostile fork " to that of the GitHub issue.
- abstractbeliefs 12y ago
  Could you explain the reasoning why? I'm not offended, but with the new title there's very little context without having to follow through the link/read the comments.
  - hoopism 12y ago
    I found the renaming a bit hard to understand as well. I think the intent of linking to this page was to highlight the fact that a popular project is being forked in a potentially confusing and divisive manner... not really highlight the content of the comment made.
  - dang 12y ago
    The HN guidelines call for using the original title unless it is linkbait or misleading. HN doesn't allow submitters to editorialize (put their own spin on) the stories they submit. The only way to avoid this, since we're not experts on all content, is to use language from the story itself that neutrally represents it. This rule kicks in particularly when users start to complain that an existing title is misleading. Otherwise that tends to dominate the thread. This is the dreaded title fever. We don't always succeed in coming up with a neutral, accurate title, so there's a standing invitation to HN readers to suggest a better one. When someone does, we change it again. But if you want to be sure we see a suggestion (about anything, not just titles), send it to hn@ycombinator.com. There are too many posts on HN itself for us to read them all.
    - abstractbeliefs 12y ago
      Thank you for your feedback. I have also spoken to me peers who agree that the original title was not in the correct spirit.
- 3JPLW 12y ago
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]

by timdaub 12y ago

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

abstractbeliefs 12y ago

Forking these days is mainly friendly because of the ecosystem that Git has fostered, but until relatively recently, forking was generally hostile, to force development to move in a certain direction away from the original intent. In this case, Arduino SRL (formerly Smart Projects, the arduino manufacturing spinoff) has forked the IDE, and significantly up-revved the version number to try and get people to move away from the original team's IDE. See also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fork_(software_development) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fork_(software_development)

amyjess 12y ago
Hmm... I'm trying to think of any non-hostile forks that existed before the GitHub era. Only one I can think of off the top of my head is egcs forking off gcc so devs have a place to put their experimental branches.
- spb 12y ago
  ffmpeg and libav - maybe not "before" the GitHub era, but outside it.
- mcguire 12y ago
  Technically, that was one of the more hostile forks; EGCS developers were very unhappy that gcc wasn't moving fast enough and in the direction they wanted. They put their code where their mouths were. The only significant, more-hostile fork that I know of is Emacs/XEmacs. I can't think of any project names at the moment, but I believe that most of the pre-Github "hostile" "forks" were due to a package being abandoned.
  - amyjess 12y ago
    That's what I'd heard at first, but I remember being corrected and told that it was much friendlier than the public assumed, and it was basically treated as gcc's unstable branch. Also, remember that egcs started out as a merger of several devs' individual experimental forks containing stuff like new frontends, new architectures, and optimizations for specific processors. The projects that went into egcs were all pre-existing projects; egcs was just a consolidation.
- orclev 12y ago
  All the competing Unix forks? The infighting in the Unix world and the blatant attempts to break compatibility with each other pretty much killed Unix, about the only thing keeping it limping along any more is all the effort that's been put into OpenBSD and FreeBSD, and the commercial backing for Solaris. Edit: Just realized you said non-hostile. Yeah, not so much, prior to GitHub most forks that weren't to try to take ownership were either experimental in nature, to continue development on an abandoned project, or in order to develop some features that the original authors disagreed with (semi-hostile). I'm not sure you can classify picking up a dead project as a hostile action, but it isn't exactly benign either. As for experimental branches those were usually non-hostile, but at the same time if they bore fruit they would typically get merged back into the upstream so not really a fork in the truest sense of the word, but more like a really long running branch.

bryanlarsen 12y ago

There have been lawsuits filed over this fork.

hamandcheese 12y ago

The fact that it was reuploaded to github rather than forked on github seems a bit disingenuous to me.

3JPLW 12y ago
Even if you forked on GitHub, you can ask the staff to "detach" or "extract" your fork from the existing network. Detaching only un-forks your repo, whereas extracting makes your fork the new root and preserves any sub-forks thereof. They will happily do it upon request.
- jarin 12y ago
  Ooh, thanks for posting this. I have a project that I forked so I could use the base code from it, but it really doesn't make sense as a fork and confuses people. (It's a deployment plugin, and my fork just installs a different piece of software than the original)

tinco 12y ago

A hostile fork is when a project is forked by people with the aim to supplant the original project without the involvement (of the majority/leader) of the original team. I think the IO.JS vs. Node.JS thing could be named a hostile fork, as could the MySQL vs. MariaDB situation.

SmellyGeekBoy 12y ago
See also: OpenOffice vs. LibreOffice
- soneil 12y ago
  This is pretty close - now imagine if both OOo and LO both had legitimate claims to the OOo trademark, and both tried to use them - leaving both versions named OOo with merely competing versioning. Nothing good can come of this. (Especially for a project such as Arduino, which really really doesn't compete on technology, but survives on their community userbase. Bringing this tit-for-tat public risks alienating the only feature they have.)
- __david__ 12y ago
  And ffmpeg vs. libav

sctb 12y ago

We updated the title from "Arduino is undergoing a hostile fork " to that of the GitHub issue.

abstractbeliefs 12y ago
Could you explain the reasoning why? I'm not offended, but with the new title there's very little context without having to follow through the link/read the comments.
- hoopism 12y ago
  I found the renaming a bit hard to understand as well. I think the intent of linking to this page was to highlight the fact that a popular project is being forked in a potentially confusing and divisive manner... not really highlight the content of the comment made.
- dang 12y ago
  The HN guidelines call for using the original title unless it is linkbait or misleading. HN doesn't allow submitters to editorialize (put their own spin on) the stories they submit. The only way to avoid this, since we're not experts on all content, is to use language from the story itself that neutrally represents it. This rule kicks in particularly when users start to complain that an existing title is misleading. Otherwise that tends to dominate the thread. This is the dreaded title fever. We don't always succeed in coming up with a neutral, accurate title, so there's a standing invitation to HN readers to suggest a better one. When someone does, we change it again. But if you want to be sure we see a suggestion (about anything, not just titles), send it to hn@ycombinator.com. There are too many posts on HN itself for us to read them all.
  - abstractbeliefs 12y ago
    Thank you for your feedback. I have also spoken to me peers who agree that the original title was not in the correct spirit.
3JPLW 12y ago

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]