This article is about "forking" of a software project into two or more different projects. For the operating system term for starting a new process, see fork (operating system)
A timeline of BSDUnix development. In this example a fork occurs when the NetBSD project was started, and again when the OpenBSD project was forked from NetBSD
A fork of a computer software project is generally a version of the original software that makes use of the same (or a compatible) license, but with a development team that is usually under "new management." Forks usually occur when fundamental design differences can't be agreed upon.
Notable Forks in the History of Software development[edit]
Unix has been forked literally hundreds, if not thousands of times from the original software developed at Bell Labs
"The BSDs" (FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD) are three popular forks of the original Berkeley Software Distribution, which is itself a descendant of Unix