HACKER Q&A
📣 mit20220401

Can one contributor of an open source software forbid someone's fork?


I never expect this to happen but it does happen in real world.

In project ABC, a contributor Foo comes up with a new API while contributor Bar believes that this API "confuses everyone".

Apparently Mr.Bar is rude and arrogant, but what happens next is that Mr.Foo creates a fork.

After a few iteration Mr.Foo creates a new repo ABCx with the same code from his fork, and of course with some identical structure from the main repo.

Now Mr.Bar is even more angry and claims that he wants to forbid this fork.

But the questions is: Mr.Bar is just one contributor of project ABC. Does he have the right to "forbid" a fork?

The license is MIT.

  👤 camclay Accepted Answer ✓
No they've stated that the code can be modified and used, only thing the Mr. Foo needs to be clear is to include the other person in the copyright notice:

Copyright 2022, Mr. Foo, Mr. Bar, other contributors...

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.