When someone forks your repo, alters it, then redistributes it as their own 😔

What happened?

@amitgupta I made a basic package for env configs for nestjs. It's a really crappy basic package https://github.com/bashleigh/...
I noticed Saturday that I had a fork notification and I was like cool, someone might contribute. So last night I thought I'd have a look at this fork and this guy has changed it slightly, added loadash and published it to npm. Not only that but he's made pull requests to some list repos that is starred to add mine to eventually.

I feel pretty pissed about it and I'm not sure if I'm being a bit stupid or not :/ feel a bit cheated. I wouldn't have minded if he decided to make a pull request but instead he's made a root commit, removed the fork and republished. It still looks incredibly similar https://github.com/fenos/...

@bashleigh this is the really shit part of the open source community :( I'm sorry this happened!

@Rundle it's ok :( the question is though should I be annoyed and angry about it seeing as it's open source? Feel like a right sado begging all my friends to star it so I have more stars :/
I suppose I can say he's done it now, I'm going to add some new features so hopefully people like those new features and he doesn't copy those too...

@bashleigh I think it's okay to be annoyed, but don't let it discourage you from continuing on it!

The dude did sort of abuse the system and take advantage of it being open source. Like you said, the proper thing would have been making a PR.

What is the LICENSE you used? If there is none, it means they cant use it since its all copyrighted. If it has a license good chance that distribution without mentioning the base source can also be illegal. In that case you might be able to take it down.

@Codex404 @bashleigh

Can't hurt to look into this as an option!

@Rundle it's kinda has and hasn't. On the one side I don't want to because I feel like he'll copy it. On the other I want to improve it to make it better

@Codex404 I used the github default MIT. So I don't really have a leg to stand on do I?

@bashleigh Sorry to hear that :/

I've never been in this specific situation, but I would honestly look into @Codex404 point. See if there is anything that you can do to protect your code, at least you'll know and can go from there. Teach that guy a lesson!

@Codex404 actually, line 12 and 13 of the licence "The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all

copies or substantial portions of the Software."

@bashleigh There you go then! Sounds like you do have a leg

@Rundle well, I made a pull request on his repo and issued an issue to show him how github is meant to be used. Doubt he'll give a shit lol

Actually, he's included my name in the licence? Not really sure what to do now? 😂😂

@bashleigh few months back when I searched for my npm package "fast XML parser", i was surprised to see two result.

Someone forked it, did a small change, and published it. Initially I had the same feeling you've right now. I thought to raise an issue and asked him that such changes are expected to be done by PR or at least the credit should be given. But , instead, I did more changes on my repo.

Now my repo has more than 200✴️.

He's an ass. I stared your repo.

I would be pissed too.

it's a total dick move, but since it's open source anyone with a bright eye can see you did the original package.

if it's all MIT then just pull his changes into your own repo. and yes, you can literally do a pr from someone else's fork.

plot twist: I built an open source library, and I won't get any of the stars. It's on the company GitHub ;p

I had a PR provisionally accepted this morning 😃 not merged yet, but planning to include it in the next release of the library. Said it could replace the core methods it's based on, instead of as new ones- I used a different API underneath to batch requests together instead of having anywhere upto 200 separate requests in flight at once. I found we needed this at work.

I can't see it. Did they remove the fork?

@neodite Thanks man. I feel like I need to be one of those annoying youtubers "Please star and fork my repo and issue feature requests as to what I should do in my next video... ...REPO I MEAN REPO" <= annoying makeup tutorial voice.

@amitgupta least it's not just me :/ send me a link I'll make it 201 :p

@shellbug he removed the forked repo I think, either that or root commits remove the fork.

@bashleigh hehe. 223 now 😊

https://github.com/NaturalIntellige...

I see why you are pissed and everything but isn't this the logical consequence and/or the whole idea of open source? - Use what you don't want to do yourself and make something?

.

@daintycode Yeaaa that's why I was like "should I be pissed?" it's a bit of an odd situation. I've since spoken to the guy via an issue and we've agreed to co-lab so it's not been all bad!

WTF THIS IS WHAT OPEN SOURCE IS FOR, MIT forces you to give credit, other than that, it's pretty much free, you're also allowed to copy from his code.

@kreijstal indeed but it sounded like it was not according to the license, but if they put OPs name in it then its fine.

(had read newest comments)
Well, they's now a (unofficial) distributor 😊

@amitgupta
I'm frigging gonna put that in my repos

@bashleigh
Oh boy.
That's not the point of open source.
It's about sharing and caring.
If the package is your minds child, you put an everyday effort into, to improve it on a regular base; fine, the fame and fortune belongs to you.

But if you just invested a single day or two for a poorly supported package with no changes within months, the fame and fortune belongs to the one who's adopting and put a lot of effort into it.

Invest more energy into your ideas or deal with it.

On the other hand, you should feel good about the fact, that you had an useful idea, helping other devs.

Hi folks,

I'm the guy that she's mentioning in this post.

I just want to clarify here. I think this is going too far.

This is something that you folks you wouldn't want to happen.

I was looking for a solution for configuration management.

i found her package I didn't like the technical approach she used to build the package.

I initially forked because I wanted to make that better. But then I realized that I would have re-written it in a totally different way, using a different approach which defers a lot from her implementation.

Because her package had no tests and looked minimalistic, I thought let's build a new version that uses a different approach to configs, so that people can use either her or mine depending on the preference.

After had spent 1 full day and fully tested my package (95% coverage).

I see a message in the issues that I forked her package and re-distributed.

That wasn't nice... Yhea I copied 5 line of her code to my repo but all the rest I made it.

End of the story, the package that I released (the fork she's mentioning, that is not.) it's now fully merged on her repository. If you visit the repo, that was my hard work that Sunday.

I just hope this package get to maintained properly.

@fenos yeaa I'm sorry I was a bit of a dick but least I made a friend and a fellow contributor :)

Wow.......

@fenos welcome!!!

*chants* GPL GPL GPL GPL GPL GPL

*lol'ing rmao in `git clone; git log `*

Happily after...

In the next chapter of "Dev TV Dramas":
*preview of 'Love at times of HeartBleed' episode *