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Forgive me for my ignorance, but I haven't contributed to open source much yet. What is the reason for forking this repo. I see a lot of people have done it. Wo

by hhsuey 6y ago

Forgive me for my ignorance, but I haven't contributed to open source much yet. What is the reason for forking this repo. I see a lot of people have done it. Wouldn't that be akin to cloning someone else's personal blog? I just don't see the point of that.

baby 6y ago
It's weird, but two potential reasons: * in case the repo gets deleted, at least you still have a copy * some github apps on tablet might give you an easier access to your own list of repos
- hhsuey 6y ago
  Makes sense. I thought about it a little more and came to the same two potential reasons.
- EduardoBautista 6y ago
  Doesn't GitHub delete forks if the original is deleted? Of course, actually cloning the fork onto your computer and pushing it to a new repository without using GitHub's "fork" feature should get around this easily.
  - hhsuey 6y ago
    Deleting a private repository When you delete a private repository, all of its private forks are also deleted. Deleting a public repository When you delete a public repository, one of the existing public forks is chosen to be the new parent repository. All other repositories are forked off of this new parent and subsequent pull requests go to this new parent.
    - saagarjha 6y ago
      > When you delete a public repository, one of the existing public forks is chosen to be the new parent repository. All other repositories are forked off of this new parent and subsequent pull requests go to this new parent. Yikes, is this a random process?
      - hhsuey 6y ago
        Apparently the oldest fork wins, or the author of the repo can decide. https://webapps.stackexchange.com/questions/86769/which-fork-is-marked-as-a-main-repository-when-the-original-one-is-deleted-in-gi https://webapps.stackexchange.com/questions/86769/which-fork...
MoOmer 6y ago
One of the benefits of open-source is that you can ensure a copy of the source exists, in the event that something makes the original source disappear.
- hhsuey 6y ago
  Gotcha. So the motivating factor was for individuals to get a copy for themselves, perhaps even use it as a form of bookmark overloaded as a backup feature. They'll need to keep pulling if they want to keep it up to date, but I suppose that could be automated.
  - HereBeBeasties 6y ago
    https://probot.github.io/apps/pull/ https://probot.github.io/apps/pull/ to keep forks up to date automatically.
    - hhsuey 6y ago
      TIL...
    - RMPR 6y ago
      This is pretty good, now I can ditch my little script #!/bin/sh git pull upstream master git push origin master
dcminter 6y ago
Possibly in order to raise Pull Requests against the repo? https://github.com/jbranchaud/til/pulls?q=is%3Apr https://github.com/jbranchaud/til/pulls?q=is%3Apr
- hhsuey 6y ago
  25 closed merges, of which half of them are closed and half merged. Compare that to 330 forks and 6.7k stars. This is still an overwhelmingly read-only parent fork that is basically the author's personal TIL blog. https://github.com/jbranchaud/til/pull/24 https://github.com/jbranchaud/til/pull/24
  - londons_explore 6y ago
    I usually click 'fork' with the intention of making some minor change, and maybe committing it back. 90 percent of the time, that minor change either isn't suitable for being committed back to the project (it's badly hacked in, it's too specific to my usecase, etc.), Or the change ends up being harder to make or test than I had imagined, so I give up but don't bother deleting the fork. That could explain the large number of forks and small number of PR's
saghm 6y ago
Ive noticed some people use github almost like a social network. A rough analogy to Twitter would be that starring a repo is similar to liking a tweet, and forking it is almost like a retweet.
- hhsuey 6y ago
  Good analogy
- hank_z 6y ago
  what is the biggest same-sex dating website in the world. Github -_-!
klibertp 6y ago
Staring at an empty sheet of paper (or a text file) can be daunting, and can suck all of your enthusiasm out of you in short order. It's much, much easier to start with some content and append your thoughts to it.

by hhsuey 6y ago

baby 6y ago

It's weird, but two potential reasons: * in case the repo gets deleted, at least you still have a copy * some github apps on tablet might give you an easier access to your own list of repos

hhsuey 6y ago
Makes sense. I thought about it a little more and came to the same two potential reasons.
EduardoBautista 6y ago
Doesn't GitHub delete forks if the original is deleted? Of course, actually cloning the fork onto your computer and pushing it to a new repository without using GitHub's "fork" feature should get around this easily.
- hhsuey 6y ago
  Deleting a private repository When you delete a private repository, all of its private forks are also deleted. Deleting a public repository When you delete a public repository, one of the existing public forks is chosen to be the new parent repository. All other repositories are forked off of this new parent and subsequent pull requests go to this new parent.
  - saagarjha 6y ago
    > When you delete a public repository, one of the existing public forks is chosen to be the new parent repository. All other repositories are forked off of this new parent and subsequent pull requests go to this new parent. Yikes, is this a random process?
    - hhsuey 6y ago
      Apparently the oldest fork wins, or the author of the repo can decide. https://webapps.stackexchange.com/questions/86769/which-fork-is-marked-as-a-main-repository-when-the-original-one-is-deleted-in-gi https://webapps.stackexchange.com/questions/86769/which-fork...

MoOmer 6y ago

One of the benefits of open-source is that you can ensure a copy of the source exists, in the event that something makes the original source disappear.

hhsuey 6y ago
Gotcha. So the motivating factor was for individuals to get a copy for themselves, perhaps even use it as a form of bookmark overloaded as a backup feature. They'll need to keep pulling if they want to keep it up to date, but I suppose that could be automated.
- HereBeBeasties 6y ago
  https://probot.github.io/apps/pull/ https://probot.github.io/apps/pull/ to keep forks up to date automatically.
  - hhsuey 6y ago
    TIL...
  - RMPR 6y ago
    This is pretty good, now I can ditch my little script #!/bin/sh git pull upstream master git push origin master

dcminter 6y ago

Possibly in order to raise Pull Requests against the repo? https://github.com/jbranchaud/til/pulls?q=is%3Apr https://github.com/jbranchaud/til/pulls?q=is%3Apr

hhsuey 6y ago
25 closed merges, of which half of them are closed and half merged. Compare that to 330 forks and 6.7k stars. This is still an overwhelmingly read-only parent fork that is basically the author's personal TIL blog. https://github.com/jbranchaud/til/pull/24 https://github.com/jbranchaud/til/pull/24
- londons_explore 6y ago
  I usually click 'fork' with the intention of making some minor change, and maybe committing it back. 90 percent of the time, that minor change either isn't suitable for being committed back to the project (it's badly hacked in, it's too specific to my usecase, etc.), Or the change ends up being harder to make or test than I had imagined, so I give up but don't bother deleting the fork. That could explain the large number of forks and small number of PR's

saghm 6y ago

Ive noticed some people use github almost like a social network. A rough analogy to Twitter would be that starring a repo is similar to liking a tweet, and forking it is almost like a retweet.

hhsuey 6y ago
Good analogy
hank_z 6y ago
what is the biggest same-sex dating website in the world. Github -_-!

klibertp 6y ago

Staring at an empty sheet of paper (or a text file) can be daunting, and can suck all of your enthusiasm out of you in short order. It's much, much easier to start with some content and append your thoughts to it.