Some personal background: I've been studying self-sovereign identity and the problems associated with communities and boundaries in a decentralized paradigm. Former Mainframe engineer; currently working at a decentralized land governance startup.

I'm curious what happens to the community of users invested in a hApp when a second developer "forks" the hApp (my apologies if that is the wrong term, I'm new here:)

For example, let's say a group of 100 people are using a chat hApp, and someone is dissatisfied with the user interface and wants to build their own interface. Can they fork the code, and still be part of the community? What grants them access (a private key?)

If it's a private key that is distributed with the hApp (and grants access to the community messaging & data), what prevents a malevolent user from sharing the key with more bad actors? Is there a way for the community to define its boundary (e.g. vote you on or off the island, for example, or delegate boundary issues to a benevolent dictator, as a 2nd example)?