You do need the owner's permission to fork the project. The owner has granted that permission in advance by distributing it under the MIT license, provided you agree to terms of that license as imposed by the owner. That you do not need express written consent doesn't change the fact that you can only use the code by permission of the copyright holder. Note that the permission to use/modify the software is not unconditional. If you fork it, you cannot change the license terms, the owner hasn't granted anyone permission to change the terms of his license for his property and the license itself is explicit on this point.
Really, the first line of the license starts, "Permission is hereby granted...," and ends with, "...subject to the following conditions:,". Don't agree to that stuff and you don't have permission from the owner and you can't use the software.
> That you do not need express written consent doesn't change the fact that you can only use the code by permission of the copyright holder.
Which is granted by the MIT license.
> If you fork it, you cannot change the license terms, the owner hasn't granted anyone permission to change the terms of his license for his property and the license itself is explicit on this point.
No one's suggesting changing the license terms. You must retain attribution, as required by the MIT license. A fork would need to carry the required attribution to Evan You.
The OSI's definition of Open Source includes "The license must allow modifications and derived works, and must allow them to be distributed under the same terms as the license of the original software."
You do need the owner's permission to fork the project. The owner has granted that permission in advance by distributing it under the MIT license, provided you agree to terms of that license as imposed by the owner. That you do not need express written consent doesn't change the fact that you can only use the code by permission of the copyright holder. Note that the permission to use/modify the software is not unconditional. If you fork it, you cannot change the license terms, the owner hasn't granted anyone permission to change the terms of his license for his property and the license itself is explicit on this point.
Really, the first line of the license starts, "Permission is hereby granted...," and ends with, "...subject to the following conditions:,". Don't agree to that stuff and you don't have permission from the owner and you can't use the software.