Andrew Gerrard worked on both and apparently didn't think Camlistore was the right basis for what they wanted in Upspin. But I'm sure you, who I'm not sure has used either project, know better than Andrew and Brad and Rob.
I am claiming I do, yes, and would happily make my case to any of them for why they should do the hard work of agreeing on minor technical details and merge the two projects. It is the easiest instinct for engineers to "split off and code their own version" over technical disagreements, and why we have a dizzying array of incompatible, half-completed decentralization projects while Facebook and Twitter continue to eat society.
Thank you again for the info/backstory, though. I am just a naysayer who has sat through 1000 pitches of Fitzpatrick's basis thesis back in 2010 and seen excruciatingly minimal progress in the space of "actually making these things work for normal people".
I'm happy to discuss this further -- my life-passion-project is to see decentralization through -- but fear I've overstepped my bounds in this thread and am taking away focus from the project at hand, which I am a supporter of.
I keep a ranking of decentralization projects in terms of how likely they are to succeed and catch on. Camlistore and Upspin have been near the top of my list for years now (Camlistore was the one that originally inspired me to quit my job at Twitch and do decentralization advocacy full-time). I am now slighly less excited about both projects, although they still have incredible potential and I would be overjoyed if either of them met with minor success.
At this point, I get the sense that Upspin/Camlistore don’t really _want_ to succeed in terms of catching mass-market success and disrupting the innovation-stifling tech giants. It seems like they’re more interested in scratching their personal itch and being content with that. Totally fine, but I’m going to be slighly less excited about releases from both of these projects in the future unless I get indications that the core team members are willing to escape the same trap that plagues all standardization schemes (https://xkcd.com/927/)
Thank you again for the info/backstory, though. I am just a naysayer who has sat through 1000 pitches of Fitzpatrick's basis thesis back in 2010 and seen excruciatingly minimal progress in the space of "actually making these things work for normal people".