[ceejayoz]

> You do need the owner's permission to fork the project.

The MIT license is the permission.

http://programmers.stackexchange.com/questions/253925/how-to...

> 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."