

The right to fork code makes open source a breeding ground for innovation - buovjaga
https://www.hanken.fi/en/news/doctoral-thesis-right-fork-code-makes-open-source-software-breeding-ground-innovation

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jkot
> _anyone could fork a program and release an identical, competing version of
> it. And still, all of the developers I interviewed considered the right to
> fork to be a cornerstone of open source software._

I have two problems with this article (and probably thesis).

First you can not just fork and release identical version of program. Most
licenses require to use different project name, clear author identification
and so on. If you fork and release Firefox with some spyware, you probably get
sued by Mozilla.

And secondly forking is not 'right'. Rights have to be codified, are
guaranteed by someone and can be taken away. Ability to create fork is just
something which is not forbidden.

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jvickers
Then if I did release something identical to Firefox, I'd be releasing
Firefox. I doubt it would be controversial at all, if anyone noticed.

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vertex-four
Firefox's name and logo are trademarked, and the source license they use does
_not_ allow you to use that trademark. The result being that you can't
distribute binaries of Firefox, whether modified or not, with the Firefox name
and logo - not because of the copyright on the code, but because of the
trademark on the name and logo.

~~~
kd0amg
Is it really a trademark violation if you haven't modified the binary at all?
If I wrap a MacBook's casing around some different hardware and try to sell it
as a MacBook, that's pretty shady, but if I have a stock MacBook, I wouldn't
expect Apple to have a claim that I'm using their branding on a product that's
not theirs.

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anigbrowl
Some kinds of innovation. I'm not seeing much GUI development, for example -
the last interesting thing I can think of Compiz, and that was almost a decade
ago. Admittedly there are some very nice-looking applications now, like Krita
and Natron, but window managers and the desktop seem to have stalled. I'd love
to be corrected on this!

~~~
frozenport
When I think of GUI, I think of Qt which is opensource and commercial.

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Vektorweg
Forking isn't worth much when the code is too difficult to change. Innovation
depends also on extensibility.

