A new project called Flock has officially launched, serving as a fork of the Flutter user interface toolkit aimed at addressing frustrations regarding Google’s resource allocation for Flutter. Flock describes itself as “Flutter+”, intending to remain up-to-date with Flutter while adding important bug fixes and popular community features.
The Dilemma of Flutter Developers
As Flutter has gradually attracted millions of developers and expanded to multiple platforms, the size of the Flutter team has not increased accordingly. Estimates suggest there are about one million Flutter developers worldwide, yet the team numbers only around 50. This means that each team member is responsible for the needs of 20,000 developers, which clearly makes it impossible to provide adequate customer support.
The Flutter team’s expansion is hindered by internal policies at Google, and recent layoffs have diminished hopes for hiring new talent. To make matters worse, Google’s focus on artificial intelligence has caused the Flutter team to shift its attention to desktop platforms, resulting in stagnation in multi-platform development.
The Birth of Flock
The emergence of Flock is a response to this labor shortage. The team will focus on community demands and accelerate development, allowing developers to no longer be constrained by the Flutter team’s responsiveness and resource allocation. Flock promises not only to fix bugs but also to adopt popular features proposed by the community.
Flock’s advantage lies in its ability to review contributions more quickly and optimize contribution policies, enabling developers to participate more smoothly and enhancing overall development efficiency.
How to Get Involved with Flock
Flock welcomes community members to join in, whether as testers, reviewers, or leaders in specific areas of expertise. Everyone can contribute to this new project. Flock’s goal is to elevate Flutter to greater heights, making it the most competitive UI toolkit on the market.
Let’s work together to help Flock become the ideal choice for developers!
Blog Announcement of Flock: https://flutterfoundation.dev/blog/posts/we-are-forking-flutter-this-is-why/
