To Fork or Not to Fork: Fork Motivations in SourceForge Projects

Background

When pushed to the extreme, forks can be considered an expression of the freedom made available through free and open source software. A commonly associated downside is that forking creates the need for duplicated development efforts. In addition, it can confuse users about which forked package to use. In other words, developers have the option to collaborate and pool resources with free and open source software, but this is enforced not by free software licenses, but only by the commitment of all parties to cooperate.

There are various ways to approach forking and its study. One is to categorize the different types to differentiate between, on the one hand, forks carried out due to amicable but irreconcilable disagreements and interpersonal conflicts about the direction of the project, and on the other, forks due to both technical disagreements and interpersonal conflicts (Fogel, 2006). Still, the most obvious form of forking occurs when, due to a disagreement among developers, a program splits into two versions with the original code serving as the basis for the new version of the program.