Phrases and firing offenses: big dongles; forking a repo

[ADSGarson O'Toole]

A controversy over phrases in the tech world has emerged. TechCrunch
has coverage:

A Dongle Joke That Spiraled Way Out Of Control by Kim-Mai Cutler
March 21st, 2013
http://techcrunch.com/2013/03/21/a-dongle-joke-that-spiraled-way-out-of-control/

One controversy concerns the interpretation of the phrase "forking
someone's repo" or "forking a repo". Its technical interpretation
would be unfamiliar to most people. See further below for one
explanation. The sexual interpretation would view forking as word play
for fucking.

[Begin excerpt]
However, there is another side to this story. While I did make a big
dongle joke about a fictional piece hardware that identified as male,
no sexual jokes were made about forking. My friends and I had decided
forking someone’s repo is a new form of flattery (the highest form
being implementation) and we were excited about one of the presenters
projects; a friend said “I would fork that guys repo”
[End excerpt]


Title: What connotation does “to fork one's repo” have?
http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/108163/what-connotation-does-to-fork-ones-repo-have

[Begin excerpt]
Forking a repo is legitimate software terminology. It means to take a
copy of another person or group's software (repository) so as to
continue development independently. There may be the intention of
contributing your changes back at a later date, or the fork may
represent a split or schism in the developer community, with different
aims.
[End excerpt]

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