Forking a theme
This page is for designers considering a copy of someone else's theme under their own control.
Fork or contribute?
| Contribute (pull requests) when | Fork when |
|---|---|
| You need a fix or a feature others would want too | Your goals differ from the original's |
| The maintainer is active and responsive | The original is abandoned (Adopting an abandoned theme) |
| You want to share the maintenance work | You must ship faster than upstream can review |
A fork for a client's private changes is often better solved as a small extension that overrides the original (Customization and white-label work).
Step by step
- Fork with history (GitHub Fork, or
gh repo fork upstreamvendor/theme --clone), so you can merge from and contribute to the original later (Keeping a fork in sync). - Keep
LICENSE, every copyright notice and the authors. - If you will publish it, rename it (Rebranding a fork, fairly) and give it its own package name.
- Write at the top of the README: "A fork of <original> by <author>; differences: ...".
- Send fixes that help everyone back upstream (Contributing back upstream).
What the GPL asks of a fork
That you keep the license and the notices, pass on the source with any copy you distribute, and add no further restrictions. It does not ask permission to fork.
Related pages
- Credits and attribution
- Free documentation: this page is free to copy, translate and improve under the GNU FDL 1.3.
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