Why Gomix calls it “remixing”

Many people are familiar with the idea of building off of someone else’s work to make your own creation. For developers, the idea is often called “forking” (like “a fork in the road”, not “what you use to eat a salad”). Forking is a familiar term for people who know version control and other heavy-duty systems for keeping track of code.

Outside of the tech space, regular people who use business software often refer to these kinds of features as “Track Changes” or viewing revisions.

Neither of these terms worked for explaining the process of building upon other people’s work in Gomix. We needed a word that clearly communicated a few key principles:

• You start with something that works, not a pile of parts that you have to assemble yourself.
• You build on the creative work of others, in collaboration with others, because nobody can do it all alone.
• The process of building on other people’s work should be clearly understandable and based on simple concepts that can be visually represented.

Gomix provides sparks — seeds or notions or starting points you can copy, manipulate and transform into the apps of your dreams. Any time spent worry about overhead or complicated concepts can distract from that vision in your mind.

That’s why the word “remix” is so important.

Pirijan, one of the Gomix team members who leads our design efforts, talks about why “forking” was never the right name for an act of creation:

“With forking, the assumption is you’ll take a project, make improvements to it, and submit those improvements back to the author to make the original better. That approach is great for building libraries, but not for self expression and making personal tools, which is much more of what we wanted.”

The inspiration for using “remix” to refer to the process of taking an app and personalizing it came from the world of music. Pirijan explains,

“When you remix a song, you’re taking a version of that track, adding your own stuff onto it, and now it’s a fully original song. That was much closer to what we wanted to inspire people to do”

Ultimately, that’s exactly the realm we wanted to ground Gomix in — the world of creativity and inspiration, where the ideas we’re expressing take precedence over the tools used to build them.

If you’re looking for inspiration, check out our community, where the sparks of your future ideas might be living this very moment! You can also follow Gomix on Twitter, where we highlight some of our favorite projects that’ve come from remixing the work of others. And when you’re ready, dive into the Gomix community and start remixing your way to something great.