now I know how grandparents feel

This is sort of touching.  I now know how grandparents feel -- seeing
your own offspring reproducing for the first time.  My baby is
forking.  Awww....

> We are days if not hours away from forking.

This is healthy and normal, and I don't oppose it at all!  Clearly we
disagree here on the best way to proceed.  I think more fundamental,
structural work needs to be done, and you (and many/most others) do
not think so.

If you fork the project, you're going to have to take on my role, and
understand the layout engine as well as I do.  And I think once you've
invested the time required to do that, you'll realize that I was
right.  Or maybe you'll realize that I was wrong ;)

Go for it.  What frustrates me the most about the discussions we've
been having recently is that nobody is taking the time to really think
through the solutions and understand all the ramifications.  Forking
the project will force you to do that.  And I think you'll achieve a
completely new perspective.  Or at the very least we'll be able to
have constructive conversations! ;) I'm strongly in favor of this even
for its educational value alone.

Open source works because it simulates free, unconstrained evolution
without bias-inducing path dependancies [1].  I encourage this sort of
competition because it can only be a win-win situation in the end.

Unfortunately my next message deals with some less pleasant topics.
This one was a happy message; the next is not.

  - a

[1] http://www.megacz.com/nsf.pdf