GitHub forking has one big flaw

"Not all forks are equal and no one repo is necessarily any more important than any other (including the original repo)."

I think the argument can be made that this is exactly why git is cool. Which repository is considered the "master" repository becomes a "social decision" instead of a technical one (by means of the admin rights). However, GitHub emphasizes the role of the "original" repository by mentioning it everywhere (as pointed out by the author).

In my opinion, it is a fair point to argue that adding a description to forks would be useful. But to say that the GitHub model is fundamentally flawed takes is a step too far for me.

The article also mentions that it would be great to have more options regarding pull requests. This is indeed something that I would also find useful. Maybe there could be the "standard" pull request, but optionally the user could propose a fullow-up action on the pull request!?

I most definitely want to see the parent repository. It is extremely valuable. Especially when I come across a repository that hasn't been updated in a couple years and by clicking on the parent I can see that the fork was just there for some short-lived reason.

I agree that sometimes I find it frustrating why a fork exists, but usually just looking at it in the network view is more than enough and is exactly what makes git/github so amazing.

Maybe github is not "horribly broken", but there are a lot of broken projects on github with the problem he describes.

You can use repository labels on Github. Here is a "root" repository with a note saying to use another one:

https://github.com/rails/dynamic_form

https://img.skitch.com/20111126-daej32y71sjau9sm3a5t356gac.p...

That's what "collaborator" means in Github parlance. If you don't want people to have this permission, don't make them collaborators. If you want people to be collaborators but work mostly on their own fork and send pull requests, ask them.