Vinyl Cache emerges from Varnish Cache rename, leaving a split that users and distros must untangle

The change, in short

The former Varnish Cache FOSS project has renamed itself Vinyl Cache and rolled out a new identity — logo, mascot, the whole nine yards — while keeping the old site content available at https://vinyl-cache.org. The team says it migrated the authoritative repositories, issues and pull requests off GitHub to a self‑hosted Forgejo instance at https://code.vinyl-cache.org, archived the GitHub organization, and updated READMEs and build scripts to point to the new locations. Mail lists were moved to the vinyl‑cache.org domain and historic content preserved. Vinyl Cache also says it took care to preserve the use of “Varnish Cache” in historic documents and release notes through version 8.0, so history isn’t erased.

The split and where it gets messy

It has been reported that Varnish Software created a new GitHub repository named “Varnish” and relaunched a separate Varnish Cache homepage. The projects now diverge: the last shared commit between the two code lines is 63806461a205a11da12deb21051f654e35acee9e, after which each side has moved independently. It has also been reported that redirects on the old varnish-cache.org site have been changed a few times during the shuffle. Developers say fork‑tracking wasn’t used to mark these forks — allegedly — and Varnish Software forked the VTest project independently, adding another wrinkle for packaging and testing chains. Confused? You’re not alone.

Why this matters — and what Vinyl Cache wants you to know

Vinyl Cache presents itself as the continuation of the former Varnish Cache FOSS project: the maintainer team is largely unchanged, and longstanding agreements mean a contributor employed by Varnish Software still holds a maintainer seat. For downstream packagers, users, and maintainers, the immediate takeaway is practical: check https://vinyl-cache.org and https://code.vinyl-cache.org for the FOSS project’s current sources and releases, and be aware a separate “Varnish” line now exists on GitHub. Who owns the name? Depends on which project you mean — but the real question is which codebase you want to follow.

Sources: vinyl-cache.org, Lobsters