[PD] list of Pd forks?

[Alexandre Torres Porres]

hmmm, I thought there was a pretty simple and straightforward and
"universal" definition of a fork, which would be basically a parallel
(independent) development. Maybe there's just no "official scientific
definition"? Wikipedia
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fork_(software_development)> says "*a
project fork happens when developers take a copy of source code from one
software package and start independent development on it, creating a
distinct and separate piece of software*", one of the referred sources on
wikipedia <https://flosshub.org/sites/flosshub.org/files/paper_0.pdf> says "*In
general it is assumed that a software product evolves within the authoring
company or group of developers that develop the project. However, in some
cases different groups of developers make the software evolve in different
directions, a situation which is commonly known as a fork.*"

Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but as I see it, Pd-Extended started as a
"distro", then it evolved to a proper fork with parallel/independent
development. Some of the changes were listed here and I assume the first
ones were in favor of better managing the build system and library loading.
Other changes were necessary so loading externals like [initbang] were
possible (IOhannes, if you never used Pd Extended, how were you using
[initbang] back in the day?) but these are now also possible in Vanilla.
Eventually other changs like in the documentation and User Interface
modifications aimed at a friendlier user experience. Other than that, Pd
Extended had a very close evolution line with Vanilla. Its versioning did
follow Vanilla's after all, so the core functions were there and some
changes also eventually were brought into Vanilla.

As I see it, the only actual incompatibility that I know is that in the
last version of Extended we have the "$@" syntax. I don't know the story
thre, but it seems it started in the Vanilla development but never made
into it? Anyway, other than that and generally speaking, Pd Extended was
kinda of a "minor" fork. Another similar example of such a "minor fork" is
Pd Ceammc. It has similar characteristics like offering a different UI and
providing pre installed libraries and objects (most of which can be loaded
in Vanilla).

As for "github forks", some of these so called forks are just development
branches with modifications that may eventually be merged (I have one of
those). Others are just people that once copied the source code and never
really worked on it. There might be some that made relatively small
modifications for personal reasons, like Christoff's, but I'm only counting
Pd forks those projects that are being relevantly adopted by and
distributed to users. Hence, with this criteria, I can't really consider
"Spaghettis" and "Pd-next" relevant forks yet.

I started this thread just to make sure I wasn't missing anything, and I
guess the discussion shows us that I haven't, I believe. Since I'm writing
now about the history of Pd and its forks, the bike shedding discussion is
actually welcome so I can get everything right.

For those that have a good recollection or ever used it, please tell me a
bit more about "Desire Data", although I think I can reach Mathieu for that.

We often say and hear Pd has "many" flavours and forks that come and go,
but there aren't that many really.

And, well, I can't consider MAX as a fork of Pd or the other way around. I
heard that MSP objects were first based on Pd signal objects, but that's
not really a fork of the software, more like appropriation - or stealing :)

cheers
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.puredata.info/pipermail/pd-list/attachments/20211006/afd9fa36/attachment.htm>