Brilliant but Cranky Plugin Developer Forks WordPress
Dr. Dave, author of the outstanding Spam Karma plugin for WordPress, has decided to create his own distribution of the open-source blog tool. Citing frustration with the handling of the development process by project leaders, he is independently distributing an altered version of WordPress with the next version of Spam Karma pre-installed.
Since WordPress is released under the open-source General Public License, Dr. Dave is completely within his rights to do this. Splitting off a separate version, or “fork,” of WordPress in this way has some serious drawbacks, however. The forked version won’t be officially supported in the WordPress forums, for one. Taking on the burden of support and maintenance for the fork may also consume so much of Dr. Dave’s time that he can’t further develop Spam Karma. On top of that, there’s the prospect of political turmoil and backlash within the WordPress user and developer communities.
That said, the prospect of a fork doesn’t bother me as much as the approach that was taken. Dr. Dave’s post announcing his intentions is snide — one might even say mean-spirited — in tone. Frankly, it all strikes me as a bit juvenile: “If you aren’t going to manage your open source project the way I like, then I’ll just take my marbles and go home!”
For my further thoughts on the fork and on the way it was handled, read my comment on Dr. Dave’s announcement.
Update
Posted 4/19/2004 @ 1:43 AM
Dr. Dave has posted a lengthy, and quite gracious and restrained, response to the concerns I expressed in my comment on his announcement. While I’m still a little uneasy about the direction he’s chosen to go, I do understand it better.
It’s important to clarify that based on his reply to me this is not a fork of WordPress. My impression is that the core WordPress files will remain relatively untouched, with the differences being mostly in the area of minor bug fixes and better Spam Karma integration. No word yet on whether SK2 will remain available for those who opt to use the official releases. My guess is that it will be, but installation may be more of a headache. See Dr. Dave’s comment, below, for further clarification on this issue.
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In fact, if you will allow me to specify even more (yea, I know: given the numbers of times I’ve had to go back and explicit the meaning of my original intent, it should be pretty clear by now that I am not cut to do news press releases):
That snapshot of the code is, indeed, not a fork.
Nor is it a proprietary patch.
Nor does it contain the slightest modification specifically targeted at running Spam Karma…
It’s a honest to goodness snapshot of the WP development effort, at a specific time (04/16/05, to be precise). With not a single change, except for an altered ReadMe that stripped the invitation to submit issues in the wp.org forums.
As it happens, it contains (among others) a bug-fix, made by WP developers, and addressing a 1.5 problem that prevents lots of plugins from working correctly with that release (SK, you guessed it, being one of them).
In fact, some new elements have come to my knowledge today that only reinforce my conviction this was my best option. I won’t elaborate on them, because I would most definitely sound snide once again, but invite you to read: http://trac.wordpress.org/changeset/2536 and judge for yourself…
Thanks a lot for bringing your arbitration to the debate and allowing me to respond here…
Comment by dr Dave — April 19, 2005 @ 2:19 pm
Thanks for the additional clarification. I’ve updated the post to refer to your comment.
Comment by Adam Messinger — April 19, 2005 @ 2:42 pm