There are tons of rumors and half truths floating around on the net about the split of ownCloud and Nextcloud. The following blogpost shows a quite different picture:
The "real" truth lies somewhere in the middle. It's a pity to see people losing their job about this breakup.
At least there is a new focus for both projects on the community...
Yes, i also think that the truth is somewhere between. The post there is just another view between the ownCloud way of "don't say too much" and the NextCloud way "we are awesome and do everything just for the community".
Regarding "dont say too much":
I have a personal opinion on the whole mess but I prefer to stay professional and don't waste my time in throwing shit at each other.
In addition I highly respect Carla for shouting out her opinion.
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I absolutely agree and respect you about this. I think its the better way of handling such a mess but it still leave a lot of room for speculations like seen in the past.
The problem is that the new reinforced focus is on a split community.
And is the community big enough to support two such projects? Can app developers perhaps easily provide apps for both platforms (currently yes).
@dragotin and myself already started a conversation with Frank on this topic.
We basically did agree on not breaking apis used by app developers so that apps can run on both projects.
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That sounds really good. Have read something similar here:
Regarding Gallery, nothing should change in the short term, since
people in both camps are trying not to break compatibility with apps
and since there are ongoing discussions to make apps available from a
single, neutral repository.
http://owncloud.10557.n7.nabble.com/Re-ownCloud-Project-Sorting-Chris-tp17507.html
For those who like to see a battle with all dirty details, get you popcorn out. The seafile project is splitting up as well:
https://seafile.de/en/about-the-future-of-seafile/
The split is a problem in my opinion. But it seems to be popular in these days...
I am running multiple ownCloud CE installs for companies and I can not afford to run into the wrong direction here. Will both NC and OC survive? If I try to explain what happened here in between OC and NC, I feel its difficult to understand from a user without admin tasks or someone even farer away from the "code" – the outer view. It sounds like kids fight to be honest in comparison to the high mission statement and goals of the whole project. And by the way: I guess a lot of the OC admins who do not read the press or these pages did not even notice what happened 
Nice what NC promises but weren't these the guys who did not fix all the stuff over years that are now announced to be improved?! Example: Upgrade experience – see the initial hangout from NC I am following OC since version 5 and to be honest: A .0 was never usable imho... Another example: App upgrade experience … some may say hey its open source – what do you expect? Maybe I am wishing/expecting too much. And I am curious to see further steps!
Its the result which counts in the end of the day. Code, quality, security, performance, reliability, usability (I do not care so much about design as long as its usable). I hope for both that they will find their way. For me its a huge relief @DeepDiver1975 to read about the app API conversation (just the fact that there is a conversation!) and even greater that you basically agree. My honest congratulations!!
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So far, I haven't seen a reason to panic out of using ownCloud. It continues to work well, is stable, and I've actually received two version updates since all this went down, one of which fixed an issue I had.
So I'm still here for the time being. As long as things continue to work well, and the developers are still supporting it, I don't see any reason to switch.
The bickering and crap-throwing isn't helpful, I agree.
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My sole concern is stability. I would prefer to never need to know what is happening in the development team - that is not my area of expertise or participation. The instant I am required to learn of the politics and internals of the organization I have to reassess my investments in the system.
Which means I am in amc2002's camp: I am here for the nonce, so long as things work well. But I have to look at alternatives.
(Ime: forks are about as reliable as the inverse drama involved. otoh, alternativeto.net is not encouraging.)
Honestly it doesn't sound smart to me that Nextcloud is being built on a fork of OwnCloud -- I would have expected them to build something from scratch. I wouldn't be surprised if eventually another company comes out with an alternative built on modern web technology instead of PHP.
Most of their developers worked for ownCloud before. Why shouldn't they use the code they already know? There is already a number of other open-source-sync solutions based on different technologies. About the use of PHP: https://owncloud.org/faq/#language
German reading about "ownCloud vs. Nextcloud":
https://owncloud.com/de/owncloud-vs-nextcloud/
As always: You need to make your own picture about the whole situation.
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Nextcloud comes with a new updater app and a new app store. These were two critical points in the whole owncloud ecosystem. ownCloud also plans a new app store named marketplace, there are not many details yet:
The main difference will be paid apps on this store (developers can earn money with apps):
https://owncloud.com/owncloud-announces-new-marketplace/
Hi,
i really wonder what the plans are to provide also NextCloud apps at the new ownCloud Marketplace. It seems that NC has already introduced API breaks / additional stuff to apps which won't work on ownCloud as seen on e.g.
From NC its the best move to introduce such stuff to pull people on their side. I think this requires app developers to either put more work in supporting both, NC and oC or to choose sides.
Really worried about that stuff, especially if apps like News, Music or Notes could get incompatible with newer ownCloud versions where it is not possible to use the newer equivalents from Nextcloud to due the mentioned incompatibilities. That would be the only reason for me to even consider moving to Nextcloud.
For developers and users a common API would be great. Seeing the development in the past (plus-apps) there aren't so many developers that want to supply two diverging platforms (or enough developers to maintain a sister project). NC is pushing out new features, OC just skipped version 9.2, not sure if oC 10.0 brings back some compatibility. There is not much hope since oC also brings a new independent app-store marketplace and currently it looks like that you have to make a choice depending on which app is available on each platform.
Yes, it seems that this didn't worked out that good so far:
Furthermore a few app developers have already started to put stuff like <owncloud max-version="0" min-version="0"/> into their info.xml to actively block the installation on ownCloud.