Re: [LAD] forking (was Re: Aeolus)

On Thu, 19 Sep 2013 17:35:45 +0200, IOhannes m zmoelnig wrote
> Fons said:
> >> Gavioli has even added his 'copyright' to the sources of the
> >> libraries that Aeolus depends on but which are not part of its
> >> source distribution
>
> now what does this mean?
> i would read "adding his copyright" as "adding a line 'Copyright (c)
> 2013 Joe Mubara'.
> this is *not* changing any license. it is claiming to have
> contributed code to the given file.

Yes, and why shouldn't it? I read it as a marker to show which
files have been changed.

> but this is my personal reading of Fons' statement.
> since he has been very vague about the actual fork, i did a quick
> google, and found https://github.com/mgavioli/oscAeolus/
> i didn't bother to checkout the entire project, so instead i just
> sampled a few source-files and in "oscaeolus/addsynth.cpp" i found
> indeed the lines:
>
> > Copyright(C) 2003-2008 Fons Adriaensen <fons@email-addr-hidden>
> > Copyright(C) 2013 Maurizio M. Gavioli <mmg@email-addr-hidden>
>
> i compared that to the aeolus source-code as shipped in debian (as i
> was too lazy to go to Fons' homepage) and find that the two files are
> virtually identical, apart from a rename (.cc -> .cpp), a different
> indentation style and the said added copyright.
>
> i'm pretty sure that maurizio's "contributions" do not justify the
> added copyright.

Well, I would take it as a _marker_ - a small side rant:
since non of the original code is trakable with some version
control system (svn/git/bzr/hg...) I think it's a good idea to
add such markers. I've local modifications to Aeolus and that's
exactly how I mark the files I changed. With a working VCS a simple
'git diff' of 'git blame' could tell you what and how the original was
changed (and, with a caring coder, the commit messages would explain
why those changes were made). And of course, for every update of
Aeolus I have to hand-patch my local changes into uptream insteda of
a simple 'git merge' (or the hg/svn equivalent).

> > Both situations are ignorant of the spirit of FOSS in my opinion.
>
> in which ways?
>
> i'm not following either MuseScore nor Maurizio's development, but i
> *guess* that:
> - - Maurizio's fork is an experiment; he took the code and tried out
> how far he could push the project to his needs; the project has been
> active for *1 month* (during June), and has been dormant since. the
> only "problem" is see, is that Maurizio has made his changes
> available to the world, by putting it on github. i fail to see how
> this is "ignorant of the spirit of FOSS".

Au contraire - FOSS is all about sharing. When I read Fon's mail
yesterday evening I got the impression of an agressive/inpolite
fork, but after looking at the source code I fail to see this.
The readme/webpage explicitly mentions the upstream project
and Fons' authorship. What else could the author have done?
Inform Fons? Maybe, but maybe he considered the project to young/un-
official. Where _would_ you put a project to share with co-coders, iff
not on github?
Somehow I fail to see the crime commited ...
Adding an OSC interface to Aeolus seems a usefull adition - after all,
isn't Fons planning to add one?

> nevertheless i do share some feelings with fons.
>
> as an upstream developer myself (though not as successful as fons in
> whatever i publish), it happens every now and then, that somebody
> takes my code and "does things to it".
> this has become even more apparent since i started using github,
> which provides information about people who forked the project "on-site"
> (which doesn't tell me anything about who else forked the project).
>
> i have to admit, that it often hurts a little bit, if a project gets
> forked and the forker never ever communicated with upstream about
> their desires, and whether it would be possible to integrate them
> directly into upstream.
>
> one thing i found crucial here is how to encourage potential
> contributors to actually contribute to the code (rather than fork it
> silently).

Sometimes the tone on the mailing list (and comments about the
required quality of coding) make such enquiries seem daunting ... ;-)

Anyqay, just my 0.02$

 Cheers, RalfD

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Received on Fri Sep 20 04:15:07 2013