In a new post to his site Mattias Noback makes a case for clones (in response to this post from Phil Sturgeon). In it he defends the creation of "clones" of tools, either slightly different version of pre-existing PHP packages or the functionality from a package in another language.

There is this ongoing discussion in the PHP community (and I guess in every software-related community) about reinventing wheels. A refreshing angle in this debate came from an article by Phil Sturgeon pointing to the high number of "duplicate" packages available on Packagist. I agree with Phil. [...] It doesn't make sense to do the same thing over and over again. At least I personally don't try to make this mistake. If I want to write code that "already exists", at least I don't publish it on Packagist. However, recently I got myself into the business of "recreating stuff" myself.

He talks some about one of his own projects (SumpleBus) and how, despite it possibly being a clone of other packages, it has slightly different goals than other tools, making it a different tool, not just a straight up clone. He also covers some of the package design principles he suggests in his book and how they can help to make an isolated package better. He also points out how recent PHP-FIG efforts to define common interfaces and structures can help reduce this kind of package duplication as well by reducing the possible implementations of any given process.

In this recent post to his site, Anthony Ferrara takes an the phrase "reinventing the wheel" and wonders if, maybe, it's not such a bad thing sometimes.

"Don't Reinvent The Wheel" is a phrase that we hear used all the time in software development. Usually it's used in the context where a library exists to do what the user wants, but they are writing their own. While the sentiment is usually correct, I can't stand the implication of the phrase. Therefore, I can't stand it when people use that phrase without understanding what it really means. Let me explain...

He notes that, while there might be things out there that do something well, it doesn't mean that the "wheel is perfect" and you shouldn't venture out and try something new. He points out two places where it could be good - when a general solution doesn't work and for education/research.

Even as a senior developer, if you never try to reinvent the wheel from time to time, you'll never push your capabilities. You'll never expand your conceptual model of problems. And if you never do that, the world will blow past you.