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by ken 2710 days ago
> Fourth, another fork, but this time nothing has been updated for over a year. I guess the user pressed fork by mistake?

A guess: they submitted a PR, and upstream never got around to merging it. My understanding is that the PR points to the fork, so if I delete my fork, the PR dies (or loses its content). Is that true?
1 comments
uranusjr 2710 days ago
It is true. Another common case I see is people using fork as a way to snapshot stuff they depend on “just in case” (since forks don’t go away if the original is deleted or overwritten). I don’t do it, but it’s quite common. (source: I asked people why they fork my repo but never sent a PR)

My stance to this opinion is similar to many others here: this is all good if it works for the author, but please don’t project your idea of a “good” GitHub profile onto other people.

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bryanrasmussen 2709 days ago
I fork without intending to PR.

Reasons:

1. I intend to build something that requires the repository in question, but I think I might have to extend the code in the repository itself.

2. I intend to build something that requires the repository in question but I feel more comfortable having a version of the code under my control as it will be quite central. (the snapshot)

on edit: formatting fix

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hannasanarion 2710 days ago
Another reason I've run into to hold onto a fork: to have a version of some software with slight personalizations that are connected with version control to the main project for updates.

QMK keyboard firmware is meant to be customized in this way, and it has many thousands of forks.

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