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Comment by distances | Hacker News Reader

It would be interesting to hear a bit more background for this forking. What does Nextcloud try to achieve that was not possible within the ownCloud project? Was this a clash of personalities as one of the ownCloud founders is among those jumping the ship?

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We can't talk about this in detail yet but http://blog.jospoortvliet.com/2016/06/nextcloud-is-replacing... has some more information on what's upcoming. If you can understand German a very good in-depth research article is at http://www.golem.de/news/community-fork-und-neues-unternehme...

Disclaimer: I am one of those folks that left ownCloud for Nextcloud.

I sincerely hope that Nextcould embraces the C4 contract for community building. That would be IMHO the best way to create and grow a community that is truly open and will survive for a long time.

http://rfc.zeromq.org/spec:42/C4/

Fantastic idea! We have started a public discussion about this at https://help.nextcloud.com/t/should-we-adopt-c4/113/1. You're more than welcome to join it as well :-)

This seems like a great codified set of best practices - but why the prohibition on topic branches?

The project SHALL NOT use topic branches for any reason.

This is a main tenet of git-flow, and it's hardly uncommon.

The direct explanation is at http://hintjens.com/blog:117#toc47 but you should read the whole post. Or even better the book Social Architecture.

Excellent link, and thanks, but the branching thing is hardly touched on, other than a quick small paragraph that reads like "it's too hard for people to learn".

Roughly translated from http://www.golem.de/news/community-fork-und-neues-unternehme... :

Jos Poortvliet, Owncloud's former community manager and now responsible for communication at Nextcloud calls it a "new start". Karlitschek and Poortvliet give as reason for the new founding "structural problems" and some "economic decisions" of the Owncloud company, that caused great dissatisfaction. They do not want to give further details. Nextcloud's business model should be focused on long-term viability and sustainability. Apparently the Owncloud company could not offer that in a satisfactory measure.

It sounds like they didn't have a viable business model, so they're starting a new company to get rid of any ties the old had.

Maybe there's VC money coming in and this is a requirement to be able to be sold later... Who knows? :)

It sounds more like a (more) viable (or maybe, more profitable) business model went against the founders/tech-experts ideals and a collision occurred. I think it is very mature of Frank not to speak out on the issue while still in a probably somewhat emotional state about it. I'm curious what comes out when the dust settles, a statement from people left at ownCloud would be very nice and appropriate...

Based on what I heared from someone involved, it's actually the opposite. They don't want VC money to come in and loose theirs influence in the decision making.

I'd guess the same. The new company is a GmbH (German version of a "Ltd." AFAIK), not a stock corporation. See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gesellschaft_mit_beschränkter_...

There doesn't seem to be VC money involved with nextcloud. Spreed.com/me is funding the transition and stock will focus on being owned by employees it seems.

you mean even more vc, than there was already in the old inc.?

Apparently not. I stand corrected! :)

http://karlitschek.de/2016/06/nextcloud/ sheds some light into this.

There's some telling comments in a thread on their forums[1]:

> So, the main thing we wanted is a sustainable company. A company that doesn't go away soon, that isn't forced by a bad funding situation to make stupid decisions, or to limit itself and not work with partners as much as possible.

> A similar fork? Well, if Frank and the rest of the engineers lose trust in Nextcloud, we won't have to fork as this time, we will make sure the company won't fully control trademark and code. No more CLA. Trademark in a foundation. So this is the first and last time a fork happens

[1] https://help.nextcloud.com/t/will-nextcloud-stay/90/4

http://blog.jospoortvliet.com/2016/06/nextcloud-is-replacing...

>'why' is the question everybody has and I hope you understand I don't want to talk too much about that

Grow up, maybe, Jos?

This sounds to me like the usual and continuous splits inside OSS communities, but Jesus, I do miss the days when you had a detailed explanation as soon as somebody leaked the IRC logs!

You don't talk negative about other people, especially if you worked with them for a long time, and especially when it's not a matter of "they hid bodies of people they killed" but mere differences in opinion about how to do business. So no, this dirty laundry should not be aired in public.

On the other hand, that specific thing is the entire reason for the fork existing, its drive and motivation.

It could be anything. "We feel own-cloud isn't libre enough", "We don't feel this direction is profitable", "We feel owncloud was too open", "I personally disliked one of the people there any wanted to sink the ship", etc etc (note: I am being a bit tongue in cheek here)

If its a reason I agree with, then migration makes sense, if its a reason I don't agree with, then obviously migration might not be a good idea. But no one knows what the driving motivation of nextcloud is! So its a bit more worry-causing then reassuring

He's addressed it and said he doesn't want to talk about it.

I don't think it's Jos who needs to grow up. If you want to watch trainwrecks go read the celeb gossip mags.

If it is an open source Project developed in the open, I believe we deserve to know why.

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