[ Thanks to Tina
Gasperson for this link. ]
“Code forking has been a popular topic of discussion in the Open
Source community recently, ever since a renegade team of Samba
developers announced it was packing up its tools and forging a new
programming path. Code forking happens when an Open Source
development team splits up, with each group taking the code and
making changes independently of the others. This is exactly what
happened with the Samba project earlier in October.”
“In case you didn’t know, Samba is an Open Source application
that enables Linux and Windows NT systems to co-exist on the same
network. According to Samba.org, some of the Samba development team
was working on a code branch that would provide complete NT
functionality.”
“They went out on a limb and were “using a architecture that
differs considerably from the one that has been established in
Samba over the last 10 years of development,” according to an open
letter published on the Samba Web site and written by Andrew
Tridgell, the originator of the core project.”
“So the team leaders “encouraged” the renegades to take
their side job on the road. They did. The new project is called
Samba-TNG, which stands for “The Next Generation.“
“Tridgell says he is “delighted” that the split happened, and he
looks forward to the innovations that the new team will be able to
come up with, now that they are free of the constraints of the more
established conservatism of the original Samba team.”