status: active
timestamp: 2026-06-24
tags: [decision, policy, forks, chrome-web-store, gpl, licensing]
Shipping a forked extension to Chrome Web Store under our name
GPL-3.0 forks to CWS: keep license, note modified, rename
Shipping a forked extension to Chrome Web Store
When publishing a fork of someone else’s extension under our own Chrome Web Store developer account:
Hard requirements (license-level)
For GPL / AGPL / LGPL forks:
- Keep the original LICENSE file. Do not relicense.
- Make our source public (already satisfied — fork is on GitHub).
- State it’s a modified version in the listing description and
in any in-extension About / Settings text. Template:
“Forked from
<original-name>by<original-author>. Modified to<one-line summary>. Source:github.com/<us>/<repo>. Original:github.com/<upstream-owner>/<repo>.”
For MIT / BSD / Apache forks: only attribution is required.
For proprietary / no-license / Apple-license-restricted sources: do NOT republish. Hard stop.
Hard requirements (CWS-level)
- Use a different extension name — CWS rejects duplicates anyway.
- Use different icons (don’t ship the upstream’s logo files).
- One-time $5 developer registration fee to Chrome Web Store
(covered by the prepaid-OK clause in
no-card-on-file).
Soft requirement (API backend)
If the upstream extension talks to upstream’s API (e.g. DeArrow
talks to sponsor.ajay.app), check the API ToS. For DeArrow
specifically, the API ToS says “free to use for all non
browser-extensions” — i.e. browser-extension use needs explicit
permission. Two paths:
- Ask upstream maintainer by opening an issue on their repo describing the fork + traffic estimate. Free, polite, usually approved if the fork is non-commercial.
- Self-host the backend. DeArrow’s API is open-source and stateless (per its docs); the database is downloadable. Hosting costs are minimal (read-only edge cache).
Without either, the fork risks rate-limiting / blocking by upstream at their discretion.
What does NOT need permission
- Republishing the fork source on our GitHub — GPL already grants this.
- Putting the fork in our
repos/<owner>/frk/tree as a submodule — internal only, no redistribution.
Decision context
This rule was extracted on 2026-06-24 while planning the chirag127/DeArrow-plus CWS upload. Applies to any future fork we might ship to CWS, App Store (different rules — see Apple Developer program separately), Firefox Add-ons, or VS Code Marketplace.