[blendergeek]

> Why isn't it _actually_ a fork though? I don't like when projects do this and don't actually make it a fork.

From Wikipedia:

In software development, a project fork happens when developers take a copy of source code from one software package and start independent development on it, creating a distinct and separate piece of software.

This seems exactly what happened here.

Are you asking why they didn't use Github's "fork" mechanism?

Github's "fork" mechanism creates a relationship between the two repositories that the developers of this software may not want. For example if the "upstream" ever becomes unavailable, all Github "forks" are auto-deleted. This is surprising to some people and definitely not what an independent separate development would want.

[OJFord]

At first glance that sounds awful, but presumably if it was remaining active, it would simply exist again (just not as a labelled 'fork') on next push?

Bit weird/worrying as a user or whatever looking for the repo on Github between deletion and push, but probably not a big deal in the grand scheme of things?