I maintain a handful of forks of node.js libraries that the original authors were unresponsive or uninterested in maintaining. Some people did the same to some

I maintain a handful of forks of node.js libraries that the original authors were unresponsive or uninterested in maintaining. Some people did the same to some Ruby gems I wrote ten years ago. There was absolutely no drama involved. As long as you credit the original authors and isn't passive aggressive about forking, all is good. In fact, one of the authors of a library I forked noticed the attention my fork was getting and wanted me to merge back. Everyone won in the end.