I've found a GitHub project I'd like to add some features to. After contacting the maintainer, the changes aren't in line with the direction he's going but he's interested to see what I do with it. What is the GitHub etiquette for using one repo as a base for another project that almost certainly won't ever be merged back into the original?
Instead of forking, my instinct is to create a brand new repo and manually copy the current state of the original code into it. Then, in the documentation, give credit and a link to the original author/repo for the starting point.
Is that acceptable, or is there some other standard approach?