Klint Finley has written about Ward Cunningham's development of Fedwiki 
, linking ideas around Fedwiki to Github, whose strapline is "Build software better, together".
Our enterprise at this happening seems to be (learning about) building more generalised knowledge than software though the software may be building in response to this and other Fedwiki happenings.
In the federated wiki we are using the meaning of fork "to divide in branches, go separate ways". Some new to fedwiki who are strugggling to learn how to use it may note that fork was also used to mean "forked instrument used by torturers," Online Etymology Dictionary .
In 2010, Anil Dash characterised forking as a cultural feature, asserting that Linus Torvald has "changed the social dynamic around forking, turning the idea of multiple versions of a work from a cultural weakness into a cultural strength."html . For a woman the idea that Torvald's 'fathering' of Git is a great achievement of cultural creation may be at odds with the claim that the embracing of forking can lead to more inclusive communities and software.
Feminists know that Women's Ways of Knowing leads to diversity of ideas but forking seems somehow different from a feminist approach.
more discussion
What else do we fork? Templated structures, as in fill in the blank PPT templates. Genres are fork repositories. Formulaic written compositions such as marriage announcements. But these aren't content so much as patterns of variables.
What content do we fork? When we narrate to a friend an account of, say, a film or tv program, is that a fork? Tattoos? Is an off-set poster of a painting a fork? Surely adjusting a recipe to suit taste creates a fork. Ezra Pound forked Homer in Canto #1 html , and Y0UNG-HAE CHANG HEAVY INDUSTRIES forked Pound in Dakota html . Chaucer forked Bocaccio. Shakespeare? Certainly borrowed plots, but is that forking? MIA in "Paper Planes" forked The Clash "Straight to Hell". What are edge cases? What are clear cases?
Forking as a cultural feature is tapping into the cultural repository as a starting point, creating a copy, then versioning it, and sharing that new version back out. -- M C Morgan
Comment from Frances Bell Thanks M C Morgan- I had a feeling it was going to be good to bump into you via Jacquard Loom.
I really like the idea of forking as tapping into the cultural repository to copy/edit and share back. This can be words, links, reused images/videos as you and I might do when forking, editing, sharing back pages/notes. But with my present state of knowledge (I can't speak for you) I can't fork and edit the software itself and yet I know that others here can do both. So it's interesting to me to ponder how forking a page is like and not like forking a piece of software.
Comment from M C Morgan. On FedWiki, forking is copying and working with content. Forking software is copying and working code. That's a different cultural repository, I'd guess. Any programmers out there to weigh in on that?
But when it comes to forking content as a cultural gesture or move or feature, FedWiki doesn't ask about expertise. Anyone in the neighborhood can fork to their personal site, and if they feel up to it, refactor, remix, etc and share out. Others in the neighborhood can draw the new stuff back into the neighborhood or not. The cruelest move might be to be ignored.
As another example: Forking as a political / ideological move - because all interesting cultural moves are ideological. God Save the King was forked by the 2nd gen American Sam Smith (Not the brewer, the composer, but the irony would interest QI) as My Country 'Tis of Thee (1831). Sam kept the tune, and refashioned the words. That might have been a insult to royalty. As far as I know, they haven't forked back. With apologies to Frances Bell.