Cloud Foundry, Forking and the Future of Permissively Licensed Open Source Platforms:
A week ago today a minor skirmish broke out on Twitter between Apprenda – purveyor of PaaS software – and advocates of the open source Cloud Foundry project, originally created by VMware. The major point of contention concerned forks; specifically forks of the Cloud Foundry project.
[…] Compatibility, ultimately, is the key to determining whether the forks which are so beneficial to development are a problem for customers. Java, for example, had multiple distinct implementations, which ensured competition and thus continued innovation to benefit customers. Compatibility, meanwhile, was tested regularly by a set of tests known as the TCK, or Technology Compatibility Kit. Without a passing grade, in fact, a given implementation could not use the name Java, and thus would not be acceptable to customers. This seems to be similar to the path Cloud Foundry, for one, is pursuing with its Cloud Foundry Core compatibility test.