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# Fork
Fork is a branch that splits from the main branch of a project and continues to develop in a different direction as a separate version of that project, possibly becoming a completely new one. This may happen with any "intellectual work" or idea such as [software](software.md), movement, theory, literary universe, religion or, for example, a [database](database.md). Forks may later be *merged* back into the original project or continue and diverge far away, forks of different projects may also combine into a single project as well.
In technology forking generally means splitting, or better said duplicating an abstract entity (such as a computer process or development project) into two or more such entities so that each one can from then on develop differently; this is very similar to how biological cells duplicate by splitting. The term *fork* is used in many contexts, for example in software development (project forking), in [operating systems](operating_system.md) ([process](process.md) forking), in [cryptocurrencies](crypto.md) (blockchain forking), [nondeterministic](determinism.md) computing (computation forking) etc.
## Project Forking
In context of projects fork is a branch that splits from the main branch of a project and continues to develop in a different direction as a separate version of that project, possibly becoming a completely new one. This may happen with any "intellectual work" or idea such as [software](software.md), movement, theory, literary universe, religion or, for example, a [database](database.md). Forks may later be *merged* back into the original project or continue and diverge far away, forks of different projects may also combine into a single project as well.
For example the [Android](android.md) [operating system](os.md) and [Linux-libre](linux_libre.md) [kernel](kernel.md) have both been forked from [Linux](linux.md). [Linux distributions](distro.md) highly utilize forking, e.g. [Devuan](devuan.md) or [Ubuntu](ubuntu.md) and [Mint](mint.md) are forked from [Debian](debian.md). [Free software movement](free_software.md) was forked into [open source](open_source.md), [free culture](free_culture.md) and [suckless](suckless.md), and suckless was more or less forked into [LRS](lrs.md). [Wikipedia](wikipedia.md) also has forks such as [Metapedia](metapedia.md). [Memes](meme.md) evolve a lot on the basis of forking.
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**Is forking good?** Yes, to create anything new it is basically necessary to build on top of someone else's work, stand on someone else's shoulders. Some people criticize too much forking; for example some cry about [Linux](linux.md) [distro](distro.md) fragmentation, they say there are too many of distros and that people should rather focus their energy on creating a single or at least fewer good operating systems, i.e. that forking is kind of "wasting effort". [LRS](lrs.md) supports any kind of wild forking and experimentation, we believe the exploration of many directions to be necessary in order to find the right one, in a [good society](less_retarded_society.md) waste of work won't be happening -- that's an issue of a [competitive society](capitalism.md), not forking.
In fact we think that (at least soft) forking should be incorporated on a much more basic level, in the way that the [suckless](suckless.md) community popularized. In suckless **everyone's copy of software is a personal fork**, i.e. software is distributed in source form and is so extremely easy to compile and modify that every user is supposed to do this as part of the installation process (even if he isn't a programmer). Before compilation user applies his own selected patches, custom changes and specific configuration (which is done in the source code itself) that are unique to that user and which form source code that is the user's personal fork. Some of these personal forks may even become popular and copied by other users, leading to further development of these forks and possible natural rise of very different software. This should lead to natural selection, survival and development of the good and useful forks.
In fact we think that (at least soft) forking should be incorporated on a much more basic level, in the way that the [suckless](suckless.md) community popularized. In suckless **everyone's copy of software is a personal fork**, i.e. software is distributed in source form and is so extremely easy to compile and modify that every user is supposed to do this as part of the installation process (even if he isn't a programmer). Before compilation user applies his own selected patches, custom changes and specific configuration (which is done in the source code itself) that are unique to that user and which form source code that is the user's personal fork. Some of these personal forks may even become popular and copied by other users, leading to further development of these forks and possible natural rise of very different software. This should lead to natural selection, survival and development of the good and useful forks.
## Process Forking
*See also [fork bomb](fork_bomb.md).*
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