Git seems to have broken down the social contracts around forking that kept most opensource projects cohesive. Unless the project has a great deal or inertia, it is difficult to remain the canonical source, and the project effectively disperses.
You're not wrong but I'd say the degree to which it has eliminated forking costs far outweigh the occasional confusion.
If you think about it, this is basically 1) a marketing problem and 2) would be solved instantly should GitHub introduce a better 'network' visualization.
Git seems to have broken down the social contracts around forking that kept most opensource projects cohesive. Unless the project has a great deal or inertia, it is difficult to remain the canonical source, and the project effectively disperses.