Overview
ForkReason reconstructs software lineage and records it through GenLayer consensus.
ForkReason answers one question well: given two repositories, what actually happened between them? It compares code, reconstructs chronology, evaluates the innocent explanations alongside the obvious one, and records the conclusion as an immutable revision.
What ForkReason is
- A forensic pipeline that produces evidence, not a score.
- A verdict engine that is allowed to say "insufficient evidence".
- A record on GenLayer that anyone can check and anyone can challenge.
What ForkReason is not
- Not a plagiarism detector. ForkReason never claims a repository was stolen, infringing, or illegal.
- Not a similarity search with a threshold. Matching code is the beginning of the question, not the answer.
- Not a legal instrument. It reports development relationships; it makes no legal determination.
A boring result is still a success.
The core idea
Similarity is not lineage. Two files match for many uninteresting reasons: a shared framework, an implemented specification, a common upstream, or an unfashionable week in 2014. ForkReason only claims a lineage when chronology and historical evidence agree, and it always shows the evidence that argues the other way.