Disclaimer: I am one of those folks that left ownCloud for Nextcloud.
The project SHALL NOT use topic branches for any reason.
This is a main tenet of git-flow, and it's hardly uncommon.
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.
Maybe there's VC money coming in and this is a requirement to be able to be sold later... Who knows? :)
> 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
>'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!
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
I don't think it's Jos who needs to grow up. If you want to watch trainwrecks go read the celeb gossip mags.