Win by attacking other forks
Usually the reason behind a fork is not complicated. Only a few reasons would be possible:
- 2 parties think a software project should fulfill certain needs, and their needs conflict.
- 2 parties are in really heated debates or personal attacks, and they can’t tolerate each other, so one group leaves and establish similar project.
- One party feels a software project is lacking certain functionalities or needs, but the original maintainer(s) is not responding, not sharing the same feeling, or simply ignores it.
- One party wants to enhance a software project, but does not want to stay under umbrella of original one.
Forks are generally competitors among each other, so the rule of thumb is, the best one wins. Free software / Open source software ecosystem works this way. However I just got a live sample of exception: code syntax highlighter for WordPress. There are currently multiple projects with the same goal, some being a fork of each other:
- Original Syntax Highlighter (now renamed to “Syntax Highlighter Evolved”)
- Syntax Highlighter Plus
- Dojox Wordpress Syntax Highlighter
- Google Syntax Highlighter for WordPress
- Snippet Highlight
- WP Codebox
- ……
However, unlike other people who try to give a more thorough review of most available options, maintainer of Syntax Highlighter Evolved choose to defame all others in order to win:
Starting with v2.0.0, this plugin was renamed from “SyntaxHighlighter” to “SyntaxHighlighter Evolved”. This was done to better stand out against the many very poorly named forks of v1.x of this plugin. I am not an author of any of those plugins, they just used my old code as a base for their version. Although I am of course biased, I’d argue this plugin is the best of all of them.
Note that defamation is not uncommon in F/OSS world. It happens once in a while, and for some projects, exists as a prolonged war. ImageMagick v.s. GraphicsMagick is an excellent example, as well as XFree86 v.s. X.org. On the other hand, csound project serves as one of the best example of decentralized project: several years ago, when it has no official maintainer, everybody and their mums end up creating their own fork.
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[...] Originally posted here: Win by attacking other forks [...]
I think you’re confused. My message was not directed at any of the plugins you linked, minus “SyntaxHighlighter Plus”. The other plugins are distinct and to the best of my knowledge use no code written by me.
As for “SyntaxHighlighter Plus” and the other forks out there, I have no problems really with them being forks. I am honestly happy that someone liked my plugin enough to fork it. I take it as a compliment, although I wish the forkers had just bothered to submit patches upstream to me rather than forking. “My” plugin had featured code from at least 4 people at the time and I would have happily accepted patches for code improvements. However not one single forker contacted me suggesting code improvements. Not one.
My real issue with the forks (and the reasoning behind my renaming of my plugin and the paragraph you quoted ) is the absolutely terrible naming of the forks.
If I were to fork WordPress for example, it probably wouldn’t be a very good idea if I were to call my fork “WordPress 3″, now would it? Well that’s exactly what one forker of my plugin did when they called their fork “SyntaxHighlighter2″. The same goes for “SyntaxHighlighter Plus” and the other forks out there.
I mean, if you were looking for a plugin to download and saw “SyntaxHighlighter” and “SyntaxHighlighter Plus”, which would you download? Would it matter if “SyntaxHighlighter” was arguably the better plugin? Probably not as you wouldn’t know it was.
My comment was merely intended to make people give my plugin a chance against the others. If someone prefers another plugin to mine, so be it.
While I agree that the naming of forks aren’t good (and some really causing confusion), I still don’t agree those names are really hurting your version. The life and death of forks are basically following Darwinism: the one that stands out wins, be it code quality, stability, project visibility or any other factor. If yours have superior quality and functionality, and people see that yours are well maintained, users would certainly pick yours. They would even spread the news for you for free. Right now it looks more like there is nothing better to show instead, similar to how commercial product vendors attacking competitors.
Besides, even though others are just forking without telling you, that doesn’t mean you must just sit and do nothing. You can also actively contact various maintainers behind the forks and ask them about the idea of co-operation and how to improve the plugin. If they know you are the “main line”, I believe many of them are willing to cooperate. If they don’t reply you, that’s their problem, not yours.
To put it simple, right now it does no good for your project, and your personal image as well.
Check out my plugin and compare it to the others and see for yourself. I think you’ll find my recently released version is by far the best.
What I mean is, such comment about other forks would cause others to think it’s a mere attack against other versions, instead of you having anything better to show.
Indeed, I’m just about to evaluate which one fits my need, that’s why I came across these plugins.
http://www.osexpert.net/wordpress-syntax-highlighter/ is based on dojo toolkit. the main feature here is no additional traffic because the needed javascript and css will load from google code api servers.
Best regards.