Forking private git repo in github.com

Question

I wonder if this is possible.

I have a "starter project" in github (private repository). What I like to do is create customerA repo (also private) but it should be forked from the "starter project". My idea is that Customer B, Customer C, all could have their own private repo and if I fix a bug which are generic in the "starter project", I can then pull the bug fix to all my customer easily.

I have not found anyway to solve this. Currently I solved this via cloning the sampe private project.. is it a git issue or github.com issue?

any work around?

Answer 1

This is what branches are for. Each customer gets a branch, problem solved.

But... if each customer's repository is in a separate account, you can just use the usual git tools to share changes. As an example:

$ git clone git@github.com:client/your-project
$ cd your-project
$ git remote add original git@github.com:you/your-project
$ git fetch original
$ git cherry-pick <change from original>
$ git merge <whatever>
$ git rebase <whatever>
$ git push origin

etc.

Github's web UI is just a convenience for the common cases. If you need to do something uncommon, just use your usual git tools. Github does not care.

Answer 2

For Git, cloning is the same as forking, or to be more precise: Git doesn't know forking, that's a github thing. Technically all forks are simply clones with different owners.

So if you'd clone your starter project for three customers you effectively have a single repository with multiple branches because each fork is a branch. Maybe you should look into using submodules for your starter project and include it in each customer repository?