1. [common after 1997, esp. in the Linux community] An open-source
software project is said to have forked or be forked when the project
group fissions into two or more parts pursuing separate lines of
development (or, less commonly, when a third party unconnected to the
project group begins its own line of development). Forking is
considered a {Bad Thing} -- not merely because it implies a lot of
wasted effort in the future, but because forks tend to be accompanied
by a great deal of strife and acrimony between the successor groups
over issues of legitimacy, succession, and design direction. There is
serious social pressure against forking. As a result, major forks
(such as the Gnu-Emacs/XEmacs split, the fissionings of the 386BSD
group into three daughter projects, and the short-lived GCC/EGCS
split) are rare enough that they are remembered individually in
hacker folklore.
2. [Unix; uncommon; prob.: influenced by a mainstream expletive]
Terminally slow, or dead. Originated when one system was slowed to a
snail's pace by an inadvertent {fork bomb}.
[glossary]