Ask HN: What is the general manner to fork a well-known open-source project?

2 points·HelsinX··3 comments

I need to add some functionalities to a well-known open source project(GPL licensed) which is unlikely merged to the project as the functions is very limited to certain people.

So I would like to fork it first then add these features.

My concerns are

1. Should I contact the authors to get their permission? 2. Can I rename the forked project

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You don't have to contact the authors to get their permission to fork the project. This is explicitly permitted by -- and, in fact, one of the primary features of -- the GPL.

I would encourage you to contact them, though. Let them know about the changes you're planning to make and ask if they would be willing to consider merging your features in.

The best possible outcome is that they are willing, which means you avoid the overhead of maintaining a separate fork!

If, for whatever reason, they aren't interested in and don't want to merge your features in, you fork the project and continue on with your plan. You've really got nothing to lose!

(Yes, you can rename your fork and, in fact, you absolutely should rename it.)

To address your doubts:

1. You can always fork an open source project and as long as you republish the changes as open source, there's no problem at all. For some licenses, you must cite the original authors as well (GPL or Apache as examples).

2. You can rename the project, as log as you put links to original authors and project.

"which is unlikely merged to the project as the functions is very limited to certain people."

you should fork, implement the change and create a pull request first. Dont assume that they wont implement it. they might do it.

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