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Well there is a lot of debate over the fork of Node.js and so far there hasn't been a ground breaking reason for it other than newer versions of popular dependencies and faster release cycles. I think supporting new architectures (specifically mobile ones) is a big deal for the fork and an important distinction from Node.

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Isn't this bad for the community? If they diverge more there is going to be a bigger split that hurts everyone.

Why would it? I have a choice of hundreds of languages and frameworks. Objective C didn't make C worse, nor did C++, C# or countless other languages that don't start with a C. In truth, they all keep making each other better with competing features.

There's a definite cost to forking, and whether the benefits justify the cost comes down to whether you believe the pre fork project was being shepherded well prior to the fork. It's a nuclear option to be sure, but it is needed from time to time.

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