GitHub Fork or rename or create new git?

Question

I forked someone's project and updated it in some big ways to work for my app. It's now a much more robust little plugin with some major changes to its workflow in general. I'm a GitHub noob at this point, so: Is it a good idea to try and do a pull request for my large update? Or should I rename the forked repository as my own? Or should I just start from scratch, copy pasting my code?

Thanks in advance!

Answer 1

2014: If the changes are too important to be easily merged back in the original repo, I would recommend considering your repo as a true fork, and advertise it as the "new improved version".

You can even rename your GitHub repo to mark that fork.

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2022: you can create a fork directly with a different name!