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Just because the repository is empty doesn't mean the forkers didn't modify the code. I've forked many a project, modified it locally, and not pushed it back up for a variety of reasons not limited to: laziness, abandonment, and shameful code that somebody would likely write a scornful blog post about. ;)

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I've done this too. Let's me create a github repo where "master" is fixed at a known version (to me) and I can clone it to any machine without worrying about remembering a the hash for the tag I want. I can push/pull at will and merge in changes from upstream whenever I desire. Sometimes local changes stay local, sometimes they get pushed out.

Github and Bitbucket aren't only for working on code with other people, they also let us consume projects at the rate that we want to consume them.

I usually clone the original repository. And after I make my changes, then I fork it and push to it. Most of the times there is no point to fork it before making changes.

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