Frustrated by
delays and the GNU Project's growing reputation for
foot-dragging, some Linux developers suggested creating
a " fork"-i.e., a Linux-specific C Library parallel to glibc.
In the hacker world, forks are an interesting
phenomenon. Although the hacker ethic permits a
programmer to do anything he wants with a given
program's source code, most hackers prefer to pour
their innovations into a central source-code file or "
tree" to ensure compatibility with other people's
programs. To fork glibc this early in the development
of Linux would have meant losing the potential input of
hundreds, even thousands, of Linux developers. It would
also mean growing incompatibility between Linux and the
GNU system that Stallman and the GNU team still hoped
to develop.
As leader of the GNU Project, Stallman had already
experienced the negative effects of a software fork in
1991. A group of Emacs developers working for a
software company named Lucid had a falling out over
Stallman's unwillingness to fold changes back into the
GNU Emacs code base.
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