The concepts of forking
Summary
This Monty Widenius blog post explains the concept of software forks with a focus on MySQL and MariaDB, distinguishes internal versus external forks, and provides historical and practical examples. It describes MariaDB's evolution from merging MySQL changes to independent feature development, while emphasizing ongoing compatibility and the role of the MariaDB Foundation in community-driven development. It also outlines fork categories (downstream, compatibility, independent) and discusses how forks influence migration and governance in open source projects.