Fork-on-share
Summary
The article introduces and argues for a "fork-on-share" model where publishing a document creates an independent, immutable sibling copy for recipients rather than a mutable, server-hosted canonical record. It contrasts this with cloud productivity suites that use URLs as pointers to server-side state and explains how fork-on-share preserves recipient ownership, durability, and independence from the publisher's ongoing cooperation. The author shows how the model avoids complex write-back problems (permissions, concurrent edits, merges) and fits use cases like templates and starters, while noting trade-offs: no live collaboration, no single mutable URL, and no recall. The piece positions fork-on-share as an architectural floor that could later support opt-in synchronization between sovereign copies, and frames it as an experimental alternative to models like Solid, Google Docs, or git.
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