39
votes
Accepted
Is keeping the forking link on a true fork necessary? (Github/GPL)
There is no requirement whatsoever in any version of the GPL to maintain a reference to some upstream project. Imagine if you use substantial code from multiple GPL-licensed projects: the GitHub ...
- 35.6k
23
votes
Accepted
How to deal with licences after forking a project?
No, you are not allowed to change the copyright notice. Indeed, the license text states pretty clearly:
The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all
copies or ...
- 5,557
23
votes
Accepted
Why do some, but not all, 100% Free Software distros rebrand Firefox?
Mozilla requires that the product must be built unmodified or the changes made to the distribution be approved by them. Debian considered parts of Firefox (the trademarked logo, and non-free artwork) ...
- 10.8k
22
votes
Accepted
When forking an open-source project, what should I do with the maintainers' emails included in the source code?
It sounds like you are going the correct approach:
you change the name of the project
you acknowledge the previous authors and keep their copyright notices
you add your own copyright info and contact ...
- 10.8k
21
votes
Accepted
Rules/Guidelines about forking a project vs. creating a new one?
You should (github) fork when:
You intend on submitting pull requests back upstream.
The maintainer doesn't like your new feature set, so you decide to add them anyway, and maintain the fork in ...
- 5,388
20
votes
Accepted
Can I change the license of a forked project to the MIT if the license of the parent project has changed from the GPL to the MIT?
That depends.
If you didn't make any changes in your fork of the project, you can just update your fork to include the latest upstream changes and get the license change along with it.
If the ...
18
votes
Accepted
Forking repos to "back up" in case they are removed?
Oddly enough, I just did this with two repos I wanted to ensure continued access to. So no, it's not a silly idea.
However, remember that you have now committed yourself to monitoring the upstream (...
- 6,917
17
votes
Accepted
Forking GitHub repository (MIT): what references to the original author should remain intact?
Your assumptions are mostly correct but you can make things a tad simpler...
You are de-facto creating a new package, so you should update your package.json such that it is clear it is something ...
- 14.3k
16
votes
Accepted
How do I deal with authorship after a fork?
You have forked a GPLv2 package, and created a derivative work therefrom. You are curious about the licensing and copyright arrangements for the new work. Fortunately, neither of these are in any ...
- 47k
15
votes
Accepted
Should I use my own license in a fork of another GitHub repository, which I've revamped completely?
The MIT license is very permissive; you are allowed to release your own work under a different license if it was based on something released under the MIT license.
See also this answer on Software ...
- 371
15
votes
Accepted
Authors and contributors of forked project
Should I list myself as author, and original author as contributor? Or should I somehow refer to the company in general? Or it is legal to only mention myself here (and leave the reference to ...
- 47k
13
votes
Preventing people from forking and profiting over minor changes
When you release software as open source, it's your intention that others can take it and do whatever they want with it — either as copyleft (where they must do so under the same license) or as ...
- 9,286
13
votes
Common practice on GitHub and license/copyright
Licenses only matter if there is a conflict between programmers. If programmers don't get in any conflict or dispute, then you can be as informal as you want and everything will go fine. According to ...
- 1,064
13
votes
Recourse for forks ignoring open source license on original code in App Store?
It certainly sucks when people take your work and use it in ways against your permission, like copying your copyleft work without also sharing their changes. Fortunately you don't have to go straight ...
- 8,859
13
votes
Accepted
Is ripping off an open source library okay?
Generally, a fork done without consultation of the original project (and without the intent to merge change back upstream eventually) is called a "hostile fork". Performing a hostile fork is -- as its ...
- 35.6k
12
votes
Starting (not forking) a new project based on a seemingly dead one
Forking and starting your own repo and submitting a PR to the current repo are not mutually exclusive.
You could do both and decide which branch to keep working on based on the action or inaction of ...
- 354
12
votes
How is the wow.js fork free, while the original project is not free?
Until 21st February 2016, the matthieua version was licensed under the MIT license; you can see the commit which changes the license to GPL v3 here. The GPLv3 is of course still an open source license,...
- 18.5k
11
votes
Is it possible to get rich prosecuting GitHub users of an unlicensed fork?
Yes, creating derivatives of a copyrighted work is generally the exclusive right of the copyright holder. If the copyright holder has not licensed this right to you, you don't have the right to create ...
- 35.6k
10
votes
Forking repos to "back up" in case they are removed?
With the recent demise of Google Code, I've strived to get a lot of popular repositories that I may potentially use, and host copies of them on Github, or on my own personal computer.
I don't really ...
- 6,409
9
votes
Preventing people from forking and profiting over minor changes
"Ad supported" is a business model which simply doesn't work for Open Source because anyone can just disable the ads and redistribute the work. If you want to monetize open source software, you need ...
- 11.8k
9
votes
Accepted
Why boilerplates are created from scratch, not forked?
Am i missing something? why are people writing them from scratch instead of forking?
No idea. This may be something specific to the JS realm. Python boilerplate projects tend to be forked heavily
...
- 14.3k
9
votes
Accepted
Can someone other than the original author contribute downstream changes to an upstream repo?
Yes, those changes could be added to any other repository - on the same conditions as the license asks.
It would not need to be the same commit or identically as the license is agnostic of the VCS ...
- 10.8k
8
votes
Rules/Guidelines about forking a project vs. creating a new one?
Don't be too bothered by etiquette here if it stands in the way of your project.
There are roughly three scenarios you can follow, each with its pros and cons.
The straight GitHub Fork. This gives ...
- 9,286
8
votes
If a project is forked and its license is changed, which license should be followed?
An open source project is a project where you receive some license that meets the Open Source Definition. A license is a sort of contract* that permits you to do certain things with the work. Without ...
- 9,286
8
votes
Preventing people from forking and profiting over minor changes
If it's open source, no. Even if it were closed source you couldn't do anything about people re-implementing a clone assuming they did it cleanly.
A company I worked for contacted Google and had an ...
- 324
8
votes
Accepted
Etiquette around forks & npm
If your PRs aren't being accepted, the best course of action is to published a scoped version of the package. You can do this even before you think that your PR is being ignored.
If you make ...
- 7,728
8
votes
Accepted
Forking / Cloning an active open source project
I know what I'm proposing is strictly legal and within the scope of the open source movement, but I am curious if there's an accepted etiquette for these situations.
When you publish code under a ...
- 47k
8
votes
Accepted
Maintaining a parallel fork of a project that contains the original authors' company name
From a legal point of view, the GPL license allows you to rename everything in sight, except for mentions in the copyright lines.
In practice, a complete renaming of all files and classes is rarely to ...
7
votes
Forking repos to "back up" in case they are removed?
It's not a silly idea. It's standard practice in open source. A simple example is Linux:
Debian maintains a fork of the Linux kernel
Ubuntu forks the Debian kernel
Linux Mint forks the Ubuntu kernel
...
- 739
7
votes
Accepted
Fork maintain and distribute a MIT project
The project's license says:
Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software... to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or ...
- 35.6k
Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible