github code edit etiquette and process

[aidan.f]

I have found a gitrepo that I can modify slightly for a specific purpose.
https://github.com/softwarecrash/EPEver2MQTT
The author includes a CC licence.
I have forked and will start to make changes.
https://github.com/hedley-a/EPEverDatalogger
My main concern is being embarrassed, I'm way short of the authors coding skill level.
Made a reasonable euro donation to Tobias.
Anything else I should/could  do?

[grams]

Normal GitHub etiquette is to fork, make changes in your repository and then - if the changes are generally applicable to other users - submit a “pull request” to the original author.

You don’t need to document anything and you should not be shy about your coding abilities.

A slight snag is they’ve chosen the “No derivatives” version of the CC license, which prohibits distributing modified copies. Taken strictly this might apply to committing changes to a public fork, but they appear to have accepted pull requests from other forks so they obviously don’t care. *shrug*

[aidan.f]

Thanks for the update, Had not spotted clause in the CC licence. Just a hobby project - one or two off, so could go private.

[Afasoas]

If in doubt, contact the repo maintainers. They may welcome the contact.

IME expected ettiquete varies hugely between projects.

The maintainers might prefer it if you raise an issue detailing your problem/proposed changes first. You can use the issue to ask whether they are happy for you to make a public fork, in order to later raise a PR which they can merge if they want to.

The nice thing about doing this, is that it leaves a record for anyone who comes along in future with the same problem/solution. Also worth checking historic closed issues for any issues/suggestions similar to your own.