History of software forks, successes

Some derivative programs completely overshadow the original. But that's not always the case.

With the announcement of Devuan, a fork from Debian, one can ask oneself whether this version will replace the original and become the basis for many other derivative distributions, such as Ubuntu, Mint, SteamOS, etc., or, conversely, get lost in limbo... What about the absurdity?

To find out, let's take a look at the major known software forks and the reason for the split to see if Devuan can go down a similar path.

Devuan/Debian (2014)

The reason for the fork: Rejection of SystemD by some developers and users.

Some developers complain that decisions such as moving under SystemD are made by the community, rather than the narrower and more involved circle, and find SystemD not very suitable for servers, so he created fork only to stay under SysV init.

OpenBDD/NetBSD (1995)

The reason for the fork: The leader of the development team had different views with the NetBSD group and was asked to resign.

Then he decided to distribute his own version of OpenBSD, designed primarily for security. He opened up the source code to everyone, which was not common at the time. According to all sources, now OpenBSD will be used much more than NetBSD, but I found only accurate statistics from 2005 (which shows that twice as much is used).

WebKit/KHTML (2001)

The reason for the fork: Apple's desire to implement its own browser.

Apple chose KHTML, the Linux browser, and KDE because the code was the easiest. She then developed WekKit, which also disabled Google's Chrome browser base, before the latter, in turn, created a fork, Blink.

Wordpress/B2 (2003)

Reason for fork: Maintain larger sites.

B2, one of the first blog managers in PHP and MySQL, actually had two successors - Wordpress and B2evolution. The creator of B2 became a member of Wordpress, which is now the most common CMS in the world.

Jumla/Mambo (2005)

The reason for the fork: the development team did not agree with the new distribution license of Mambo, which became the owner.

Jumla is Arabic for "together." The Mambo developers created this new CMS after a high-profile controversy. Joomla is now in the top three most used CMSs with Wordpress and Drupal. When in Mambo... the foundation that distributed it closed its doors in 2013 and the name is supposedly forgotten, but the code is still available on Sourceforge .

FluxBB/PunBB (2008)

Reason for fork: After the purchase of PunBB, a forum CMS, developers wishing to maintain freedom of decision-making left the project to found their own.

The team leader decided to leave the PunBB project due to fatigue, and then other developers did the same to create FlueBB. The latter achieved great success, while the original is no longer developed.

FreeOffice/ OpenOffice.org (2010)

Fork motif: Oracle's lack of desire for development following its buyout from Sun.

In 2010, noting that Oracle did not intend to develop software, the programmers decided to create a new version with the same source code. Then Oracle asked everyone involved in this competing project to resign, and the FreeOffice development team expanded. It was the first open continuation for the office, and remained so even after Oracle transferred OpenOffice.org to the Apache Foundation.

Conclusion

All these forks are hits. This is not always the case, for example, a lot of Node.js forks, but none of them have yet been replaced. They all respond to the desire to better develop software or make it more free. The Devuan case is unique, the first time a fork is made to continue using an older instrument. Also, unless SystemD is a failure and its problems are completely insoluble, then it seems that it is the fork, and not the original, that will sink into oblivion...

Update December 6, 2014: Immediately after the publication of this article, I became aware of a new fork from Node.js, Io.js! Since it implies the leading Node developers and the motive is to speed up development, it has a better chance of success than the previous ones... Unless the two projects merge.

Update May 13, 2015: An agreement has finally been reached between the Io.js team and the Node.js team to merge the two projects into the Node fund. This is a success for Io.js, as their implementation should become Node.js 3.0.