Forks in general are different branches of a project that started at one point as one, and due to differences of opinion among the team members, the team and consequently the project splits up into 2 or more forks. Forks are possible under the GPL and generally under the OSS licenses.
Few forks exist in the free software world, a phenomenon that was noted by critiques since anyone can fork a project and be done with it. Now few is a relative term, it is relative to the total number of OSS project versus the number of actual forks in existence. A few of the more famous forks fo example would be , and likely the biggest forking event in recent years is X11 - Xorg fork. Others to answer your question are m0n0 and pfsense , and indeed, as you have noticed IpCop and Smoothwall are also forks. They are not 100% identical, with Smoothwall being the simpler and less feature rich of the two, IpCop does indeed have a far better UI, it also has a plug in system that makes adding new functions relatively easy, now to give Smoothwall their due, they are working on a new release to contail kernel 2.6 and a plug in system to ease adding modules to the firewall plus a new update system. At the end of the day you need to identify your needs, and locate the most suitable software to cover them. Knowing about forks is useful, it adds background to your research as you identify available software and the requirement set available in each. Cheers Szemir On January 3, 2007 10:12, Mitchell Brown wrote: > Correct, it is a fork of m0n0. I'm not sure what the differences are > though. > > Can someone tell me why IPCop and Smoothwall look 100% identical? > What's the deal there? > > On 1/3/07, bogi <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > It sure looks very capable, maybe we could do a presentation on it in the > > near future, I know, it is not linux, but it is open source for sure :-) > > It looks like a fork of m0n0, only double the functionality, very > > intresting. > > > > I have also stumbled yesterday upon a Endian firewall, > > http://www.endian.it/en/community/ > > Yes i know it is Italian, just got the iso yesterday, will give it a > > whirl and tell you more about it. We could stitch a full presentation of > > these 2 firewalls including the extra features and a live demo of both > > one of those days. > > > > Cheers > > Szemir > > > > On January 3, 2007 02:25, Gustin Johnson wrote: > > > I find pfsense to be more elegantly designed than IPCop. IPCop is > > > good for a generic firewall/router, but I find it very awkward to > > > customize it beyond the default install. IPCop's shortcomings become > > > quite evident when you have a bunch to manage. Plus outbound filtering > > > requires a mildly clumsy hack with ipcop, not so with pfsense. > > > > > > Pfsense also does failover (it can handle two concurrent ISPs), it can > > > also cluster for HA, all out of the box. These are things that IPCop > > > cannot do. > > > > > > Mitchell Brown wrote: > > > > I find that the firewall configuration in m0n0wall is more convoluted > > > > then in IPCop. It doesn't open ports automatically, etc. It's just > > > > clumsy imho. > > > > > > > > On 1/2/07, Gustin Johnson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > > While both are excellent Open Source projects, neither really fits as > > > > a presentation for the Calgary *LINUX* Users Group :) > > > > > > > > Interestingly enough, I prefer pfsense to IPCop, I have a box that > > > > can be used as a demo. Maybe better for a show'n tell meeting. > > > > > > > > Mitchell Brown wrote: > > > >>>> PFSense? m0n0wall? > > > >>>> > > > >>>> Monowall, while cumbersome to install, is amazing. > > > >>>> > > > >>>> On 1/2/07, Shawn <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > >>>> IPCop was presented last May - http://www.clug.ca/node/413 > > > >>>> > > > >>>> It hasn't really changed much since then, so I personally think a > > > >>>> different presentation is in order... :) > > > >>>> > > > >>>> Shawn > > > >>>> > > > >>>> bogi wrote: > > > >>>>>>> I think IpCop definitely deserves a good presentation, it has > > > >>>>>>> been quite the time since we had a firewall or networking > > > >>>>>>> presentation. I would also go into installing extra modules > > > >>>>>>> onto IpCop for content filtering and Parenting purposes, yep, > > > >>>>>>> kids are getting older ... > > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > > > clug-talk mailing list > > > > [email protected] > > > > http://clug.ca/mailman/listinfo/clug-talk_clug.ca > > > > Mailing List Guidelines (http://clug.ca/ml_guidelines.php) > > > > **Please remove these lines when replying > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > > clug-talk mailing list > > > [email protected] > > > http://clug.ca/mailman/listinfo/clug-talk_clug.ca > > > Mailing List Guidelines (http://clug.ca/ml_guidelines.php) > > > **Please remove these lines when replying > > > > > > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > > clug-talk mailing list > > > [email protected] > > > http://clug.ca/mailman/listinfo/clug-talk_clug.ca > > > Mailing List Guidelines (http://clug.ca/ml_guidelines.php) > > > **Please remove these lines when replying > > > > _______________________________________________ > > clug-talk mailing list > > [email protected] > > http://clug.ca/mailman/listinfo/clug-talk_clug.ca > > Mailing List Guidelines (http://clug.ca/ml_guidelines.php) > > **Please remove these lines when replying _______________________________________________ clug-talk mailing list [email protected] http://clug.ca/mailman/listinfo/clug-talk_clug.ca Mailing List Guidelines (http://clug.ca/ml_guidelines.php) **Please remove these lines when replying
