Day 55: Forking on github
I forked a project on Github
And made it better.
What is forking ?
On github, forking literally means taking someone else’s project and saving it as your own repository.
Why do we fork ?
Usually, one will fork a project to make it better, to add features to it, etc…
Who forked before me ?
One highly popular fork is the MariaDB project, from the original Mysql.
Mysql was acquired by Oracle Corporation in 2009.
Since the original developers of MariaDB had doubts about how this deal could turn out.
They forked Mysql and created MariaDB.
The original authors then kept MariaDB open source so we end-users would be able to use it for free (forever !!!)
Why did I fork ?
Well, I have become very interested in REST apis lately. (see this article.)
I recently came across this project, which aims at making an api client for the CEX.io platform.
It was a working implementation but old (2014).
I started my own fork of it
Changes I brought along:
- Added changes to make it python 3 compatible.
- Added new modules to interact with the api
- Corrected some formatting and spelling mistakes.
What should you know ?
1. Acknowledge that this project is not yours:
But you can fork it and make it your own.
2. Check the licences:
In this case it’s MIT license.
So I can change it any way I want, BUT i absolutely need to keep the copyright notice from the original Author.
This is the case for most licences out there.
3. Be thankful to the Author:
Star his repository.
Give him credit.
Pay him a coffee.
Praise his genius :)
4. Make it better:
There is no use in taking someone else’s project and just copy and pasting stuff without giving back.
Correct the mistakes, add features, do something useful!
Documentation is key !