On Fri, Jan 8, 2010 at 17:11, Lawrence F. London, Jr. <
venaurafarm@bellsouth.net> wrote:
*Note that forks aren't actually encouraged in open source or openknowledge
projects, in most cases, but the freedom to fork is an important one.Why is that not encouraged.
It is allowed because freedom is important, and sometimes forks lead to
successful projects. It is discouraged because it usually doesn't lead to
anything - so at least it deserves some deep thinking before taking the
plunge.
Poorly planned forks, or forks where the issues could have been resolved
within the original project, lead to a loss of synergy, a spreading and
dissipation of the creative energy.
I need to google the term to find out more
but forks sound like they could be just the thing for some people in
certain circumstances. I can see that locating a fork in a new wiki
elsewhere might not be good or necessary if the author can make the
structural and data changes he wants in the original wiki to exactly
suit the needs of his special development effort, thus keeping things
"at home".
Yes, google it, and yes, there is a time for forking.
If a wiki had a large farming section and I was only interested in
biological farming and it contained a well developed section on that
topic and there was also a large area on conventional agriculture there
that I had no control over I might well want to start a fork on another
wiki dedicated completely to biological farming. That would make good
sense. Artistic license...
"that I had no control over " - I'm not sure what you have in mind. In an
open wiki that has maintained a collaborative, supportive spirit, you would
usually be able to contribute, but no one person has control.
Which reminds me of Bob's comments about Wikipedia, which is not so friendly
these days. Appropedia is certainly *much *friendlier, and with help from
the broader community, we hope to make it even more friendly and supportive.
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