To take a copy of source code from an existing software project and start independent development on it, creating a distinct and separate piece of software. Developers fork a project when they want to experiment without affecting the main branch, or when a community splits over the technical direction of an open-source tool. The resulting new project is also called a fork.
Heard on the job
They refused to merge our patches, so we decided to fork the repository and maintain it ourselves.
Insider tip
A hard fork in network protocols means the new version is not backwards compatible with the old one.