Fork an existing read-only Git repository

Question

I want to make additions to a Git, so that the original author is able to pull the changes. Normally I'd fork that on something like GitHub and the workflow is simple. However for external repos I did find nothing in the documentation.

Does anybody know how this would work for an external repository? Here's what I tried:

% more .git/config 
[core]
    repositoryformatversion = 0
    filemode = true
    bare = false
    logallrefupdates = true
[remote "upstream"]
    fetch = +refs/heads/*:refs/remotes/origin/*
    url = git://wiesel.ece.utah.edu/gr-ieee802-15-4.git
[branch "master"]
    remote = origin
    merge = refs/heads/master
[remote "origin"]
    url = [email protected]:wishi/gr_802.15.4.git
    fetch = +refs/heads/*:refs/remotes/origin/*

upstream is supposed to be the remote repo, and master the GitHub thingy. So after a trivial first change:

% git commit -a -m "check"
[master 796f97a] check
 1 files changed, 1 insertions(+), 1 deletions(-)

% git push origin master
To [email protected]:wishi/gr_802.15.4.git
 ! [rejected]        master -> master (non-fast-forward)
error: failed to push some refs to '[email protected]:wishi/gr_802.15.4.git'
To prevent you from losing history, non-fast-forward updates were rejected
Merge the remote changes before pushing again.  See the 'Note about
fast-forwards' section of 'git push --help' for details.

So that makes sense: merge the two branches:

% git merge upstream/master
fatal: 'upstream/master' does not point to a commit

And here I am...

Answer 1

I don't think it's this complicated.

1. Clone the original repository git clone git://wiesel.ece.utah.edu/gr-ieee802-15-4.git
2. Create a new repository on github (say gr-ieee802-15-4 under the username wishi).
3. Add the r/w URL as a remote into your local clone - git remote add github [email protected]:wishi/gr-ieee802-15-4.git.
4. Push to your newly added remote git push github master

Assuming that your ssh keys and stuff are set up correctly, this should work fine.

The original author can add a read only URL for your github repository as a remote in his local clone, update that and pull in any changes which you've made. The "pull request" will have to be done via. email or an external issue tracker.