fork

In open source, a fork happens when someone takes the source code and starts a new project with it, diverging from the original. This can be benign (just personal experimentation) or a serious split (as in the community creates a rival project because of disagreements). E.g., OpenTofu was a fork of Terraform when HashiCorp changed licenses.

People distinguish between hard and soft forks:

1. Hard Fork (The "Divorce") A permanent, non-backward-compatible divergence where a project splits into two distinct, competing entities (e.g., Elasticsearch vs. OpenSearch). In a business context, a hard fork represents a governance rupture or "systemic risk event." It fractures the community, splits the network effects, and forces users, contributors, and investors to choose a side—often destroying value in the short term to preserve freedom or utility in the long term.
2. Soft Fork (The "Upgrade") A backward-compatible update or divergence where the new rules or features remain interoperable with the legacy protocol. In a business context, this is a strategic evolution rather than a split. It allows a company to tighten governance or introduce commercial features without alienating the existing user base or breaking the ecosystem’s continuity (e.g., a "friendly fork" meant to merge back, or a compatible commercial distribution).