In the distant year 2002, a group of programmers released the first version of OpenOffice, which gained support from a large community. In 2010, instead of contributing to the updates and enhancements of OpenOffice, some programmers decided to create a “fork,” meaning they made a copy of the source code and incorporated their own improvements into it. There can be various reasons for not contributing to an existing project and opting to work on a fork, ranging from the desire to transform a product completely to potential conflicts among individuals.

The concept of a fork is quite intriguing and will be revisited multiple times later on because it enables what would be impossible in reality. This is possible in the realm of information technology because things can be duplicated. When an online video is streamed or downloaded to a computer, the original copy is not removed; instead, a new one is created. Paradoxically, if this technique could be applied to historical figures, and if the USSR were a computer project, it would have been possible to fork it after Lenin’s death, resulting in separate paths for Stalin and Trotsky.

If someone were interested in forking LibreOffice, they could do so freely, just as they are at liberty to revisit the Divine Comedy and republish it under a different name, even for a fee.