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Movable Type gets forked into Melody From the 'fork is a four letter word' files:
Movable Type has been forked -- at least the open source GPL version -- into a new project called Melody. Yes this blog is powered by Movable Type too. Six Apart, the vendor behind Movable Type created an open source version of Movable Type in 2008. Usually a fork of open source code happens because developers are not happy with the direction of code development and the main project. In the case of Melody -- at least so far -- this looks to be a 'friendly' fork. The creator of Movable Type, Benjamin Trott sees where Melody will fit in at a bleeding edge community level, whereas Movable Type will hold its position as the professional version. "We see the Melody community focusing on the equally-valuable ideas of bleeding-edge community-driven ideas, rapid iteration, and integration with the code of other open source projects," Trott wrote in a blog post." It's great news for the entire Movable Type community, as this new project uses the same themes, the same templates, the same plugins and the same publishing engine as Movable Type. And since it shares the GPL license with MT, it's even a great way for these new developments to work their way back into the official versions of Movable Type itself."While I respect Trott's position, I have to respectfully disagree with his long term view of how Melody will affect Movable Type. Initially Melody will be compatible with Movable Type, because it has to in order to migrate users. But once Melody has its own momentum and if it is truly a fork seperate from Six Apart, then why would Melody toe the Movable Type line? Backwards compatibility is one thing, but at a certain point in the future Melody will be different, it will take a different development direction and they will be two different products. I've seen it before with the Mambo Joomla CMS split a few years back (thought that wasn't a friendly split). The Melody FAQ also makes it plainly clear that the goal of the effort is not to create a schism in the Movable Type community but rather create a new culture of innovation and extensibility. That makes good sense, but what happens when the community wants a key feature that Six Apart/Movable Type doesn't? 0 TrackBacksListed below are links to blogs that reference this entry: Movable Type gets forked into Melody. TrackBack URL for this entry: https://swarm.jupitermedia.com/mt-tb.cgi/8340 1 CommentsLeave a comment |
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I find it interesting how few forks have actually transpired in the Open Source world, given that one of the tenants of OS is to foster and fuel innovation itself.