Confused after forking an Open Source project?

I have been using an Open Source project professionally since last 6 months. The original contributors are heading towards quiet opposite to what I liked most in that project.

They are adding "new features" which are good in purpose but what I want is stop the new features injection and build on what it is already strong in the project and polish it more.

I have some doubts on licensing stuffs and I've never contributed to Open Source projects before. How should I approach this situation ?