I recently came across the need for a WP plugin which did not exist and so I started working on a plugin of my own. In my search, I found non-published (in terms of availability on WP.org) code about 100 lines long on someone else’s github which was mostly copied and pasted from an online tutorial by another person and WP codex examples. I have since expanded the code to about 1000 lines, rewrote and rebranded most of the functions, and I am looking to publish it on WP.org soon.
When I originally found this code, I just forked it on github and credited the middle man in my description. I was confused why github was not recognizing my commits as “activity” until I found this page which explains that github does not count commits in forks until it gets pulled back up the main branch.
This got me thinking about whether or not the code I have been working on should be considered a “fork” or not. Since I mainly used it as a function reference, I have been leaning towards thinking of it as not a fork. (I am still crediting the middle man in the description though.)
I could really use some input on this situation since this is the first time that I have started with someone else’s code and am looking to publish it as open-source. Thoughts? Maybe on where the line between “fork” and “original code” is?