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I'm making major changes to a github project, almost rewriting it from scratch, and want to share my contribution. Should I always use fork or does it may make sense to create a new repository?
More details: I'm rewriting from Winforms to WPF a project that is completely abandoned. It was an old sample from Microsoft, and someone just copied it to github, identical code without any improvement. There are about 5 forks, all irrelevant, and only 1 commit (irrelevant) made in the last 12 months.
Does it make sense that I create a brand new repository for that? Forking from the old repository would give any benefit to someone or will only confuse people? Also, would it be ethical if I change the namespace?
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Create a new repository. If you find an inactive project, don't fork it. Forking on GitHub was more designed with the idea that you would submit a pull request - that is, that you would make improvements, and submit them back to the original project.
A new repo should only be created for a new project. For instance, if you are working on a 2 different e-commerce sites, don't put them in the same repo unless they have to work together.
A fork is a copy of a repository. Forking a repository allows you to freely experiment with changes without affecting the original project. Most commonly, forks are used to either propose changes to someone else's project or to use someone else's project as a starting point for your own idea.
When you fork a repository, you create a copy of the original repository (upstream repository) but the repository remains on your GitHub account. Whereas, when you clone a repository, the repository is copied on to your local machine with the help of Git.
For a complete rewrite of an old GitHub repo, a fork does not make sense.
Forking means contributing back to the original project through Pull Requests.
A new repo (and new namespace) which mentions clearly in its README its origin is simpler, and clearer.
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