Derivative projects

How to think about forks, new versions, and derivatives on OSPREY, and what the lineage graph is actually claiming.

Three things people lump together

Saying "I'm building on top of project X" can mean very different things in practice. OSPREY splits them into three relations so the credit and the history stay readable.

New version

Same team, same project, later release. Pump v2 by the same lab that made Pump v1 is a new version, not a derivative. Use the "new version" workflow so the version history page lists them in order and the DOI chain stays clean.

Derivative

Different team picks up the design, modifies it, and ships their own thing. The original maintainers do not control the new project. This is a derivative. The lineage edge points from the derivative back to its parent. Both projects keep their own wikis, use reports, and version histories.

Inspired by

Heavy intellectual debt without a shared codebase or BOM. Worth recording in a project's description; usually not worth a lineage edge unless the reuse is substantial.

Etiquette

• If you derive from a project, add the lineage edge and a short note explaining what you changed and why.
• If a derivative supersedes the original for a specific use case, say so plainly. That is useful information, not an insult.
• Wikis on derivatives can either fork the parent's pages or link out. Both are fine. Linking out avoids drift.

What the lineage graph claims

A lineage edge is a factual claim that one project built on another. It is not an endorsement. The graph view shows parents and descendants for any project; it is not a citation count and should not be used as one. For citations, see the citations dashboard on each project.