issue with forking an unstable repo on Github

Question

I have a trivial question on git (I'm not expert in git, but manage to do most of the tasks).

I made a fork of a popular project on github, hoping to contribute to it and then request a pull of my changes to the main repo.

After I cloned the repo onto my disk, I tried to build it as downloaded and found build errors.

If I make changes to my local repo and request a pull to the master project, will it look as if I caused the build error?

Or should I wait to fork a stable repo and make changes to it?

Answer 1

You don't have to wait to fix the errors. Because every commit in GitHub is sealed with a SHA1 hash code. If the project already had build errors, you can easily prove it. But before that, you must be absolutely sure that you are not facing with an environment problem.

I would also suggest, asking the latest status of the project to the fellow team members. Before making any commitments, you can easily open an issue for the build errors and wait for an answer.

Also if your findings are correct, this may be a very good chance to contribute!