[Leaplist] Defination

[Bryan J. Smith]

On Sun, 2008-11-23 at 20:06 -0500, Tom Parker wrote:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fork_(software_development)
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Branching_(software)

In a nutshell, and less objective (more subjective) ...

Branches are controlled changes by the original party, possibly even
delegated to other parties.  "We decided to branch off this work,
because it's more experimental" or "We decided it was time to branch off
this work in the hope to getting to 1.0 release, while the main branch
(aka trunk) continues to work on features for after 1.0."

Forks are often uncontrolled changes by the original party, often by
non-delegated, other parties.  "Organization X has forked from us, and
they should not be considered part of our project."  Although sometimes
it is intentional by the original party such as, "Group Y has forked our
code because they are going to work on these features which we are not
interested in this time for our efforts."

Branches are typically still a cooperative effort where some (most if
not all) changes will be shared (or looked) at some point.

Forks are typically more standalone, breakaway developments that see far
less exchange.



-- 
Bryan J  Smith              Professional, Technical Annoyance
mailto:b.j.smith at ieee.org  http://www.linkedin.com/in/bjsmith
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           Fission Power:  An Inconvenient Solution


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