mbklein
Community Process Question – dependencies, forking, maintainer contact
I submitted a couple PRs to a library that were both accepted and merged, but without a new release. I have a library I’ve been waiting to release, but it depends on the aforementioned library (and those changes), and Hex (obviously, reasonably) won’t let me publish with a github-based dependency. I’ve tried to ping the maintainer in a couple PRs and issues, but I’m also wary of becoming a PITA and I hate calling people out publicly (which is why I haven’t mentioned either the library or the maintainer here). I understand everyone has plenty of competing priorities, and being a pest to people who share their code for free isn’t a great way to make friends or have productive collaborations. 
It’s been about three weeks since my last Github issue about it. So, from a community standpoint, is my best option:
- Fork and release the dependency so I can release my own package, with the intention of switching the dependency back over if/when the original gets a new release?
- Release without a hard dependency, but document the fact that the github version needs to be added to
mix.exsalso for the time being? - Fork and don’t look back?
- Keep being patient and try to approach the maintainer via other means?
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mbklein
Success! 
kokolegorille
I cannot answer your question, but I can tell some projects have been forked for the same reasons.
If You try to contact the maintainer, but have no responses… You might have no choice but to fork.
BTW If You publish on hex, your solution 1 might not work because I am not sure it can be reverted. See this post
mbklein
Thanks, @kokolegorille. I did see a bunch of hard forks, but I think this is a somewhat different case. The project hasn’t been unmaintained or abandoned; it just has a pretty slow turnaround. The creator/maintainer has a bunch of actively maintained libraries, and I imagine it’s hard to shift focus and keep up. I might try reaching out via a DM on this forum and volunteer as a co-maintainer in case that helps.
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