But one could say that he does not own the "means of production" but instead it is owned by community, which has democratic control (for example a fork might become more popular). I'd say that is a trait of socialism and perhaps anti-capitalist.
No. "Copyright (c) 2013-2016 Evan You" ... he clearly owns the product or at least makes claim to do so. Such a claim of ownership, and likely valid claim at that, immediately refutes your position. While others are entitled to create derivative works, it is only by the good graces of the property holder.
But more importantly, there is a fallacy that the material goods or machinery that are used in the creation of a product (the "means of production") are somehow responsible for that product coming to be. That's nonsense. It was nonsense in the industrial era and it's even more apparently nonsense in software development. Sure, factories were hard come by back in the day, but having a factory didn't mean you'd be successful: you had to think and if anything is an individual endeavor, it's thinking. Now that the means of production can simply be owning a computer... something open to a wide variety of people of all backgrounds... one sees the relative individual contributions to success or failure more dramatically.
As for someone going off and, with the owner's permission, forking the project: they will only be more successful due to the individual contributions of those making the fork. Some vague abstract notion of "community" will not suffice.
You do need the owner's permission to fork the project. The owner has granted that permission in advance by distributing it under the MIT license, provided you agree to terms of that license as imposed by the owner. That you do not need express written consent doesn't change the fact that you can only use the code by permission of the copyright holder. Note that the permission to use/modify the software is not unconditional. If you fork it, you cannot change the license terms, the owner hasn't granted anyone permission to change the terms of his license for his property and the license itself is explicit on this point.
Really, the first line of the license starts, "Permission is hereby granted...," and ends with, "...subject to the following conditions:,". Don't agree to that stuff and you don't have permission from the owner and you can't use the software.
> That you do not need express written consent doesn't change the fact that you can only use the code by permission of the copyright holder.
Which is granted by the MIT license.
> If you fork it, you cannot change the license terms, the owner hasn't granted anyone permission to change the terms of his license for his property and the license itself is explicit on this point.
No one's suggesting changing the license terms. You must retain attribution, as required by the MIT license. A fork would need to carry the required attribution to Evan You.
The OSI's definition of Open Source includes "The license must allow modifications and derived works, and must allow them to be distributed under the same terms as the license of the original software."
