AROS is developed as an open project, and forks and downstream distributions are permitted under the terms of the AROS Public License (APL). Accurate attribution of upstream development is a fundamental requirement of that license and is essential for maintaining transparency for users, developers, and third-party contributors.

In recent cases, forks have been presented in ways that blur the distinction between upstream AROS development and downstream work. This includes cherry-picking upstream commits such that they appear to originate from the fork, as well as distributing binaries that are incompatible with upstream AROS while being presented as equivalent or interchangeable.

These practices misrepresent the provenance of the work and actively divert third-party development, support, and contributions away from upstream AROS development, to the detriment of the project and its users.

To protect the integrity of the AROS project and its development history, aros.org will no longer link to unofficial community resources, forks, or third-party distributions that misrepresent upstream authorship, obscure binary incompatibility, or otherwise undermine transparent development under the APL.

Forks and distributions remain free to exist independently in compliance with the APL, but they are expected to clearly and accurately attribute upstream AROS development and to clearly distinguish themselves from the upstream project.