GoW PyPRP - Some clarity regarding the fork from Alcugs
Posted: Wed Jan 23, 2008 2:01 pm
Shorah everyone,
as you have certainly noticed, there is a bit of confusion about the forking of PyPRP into GoW-PyPRP.
In this statement I will try to remove some of that confusion.
Forking
Basically a fork is a branch in the development process. A project is forked when a group of developers want to go down a different path and implement new features in a different way than the original authors of the software.
As long as the license permits it, this is perfectly legal.
In this case, PyPRP was under Gnu Public License (GPL), which allows forks and derivative works, as long as they abide by the GPL. Basically the GPL states that if you release anything, you must make the source code available too, give credit to the original author(s), and put the new project under GPL as well. We did just that.
Background
The decision to fork was made by a number of PyPRP developers who invested a lot of time in developing for PyPRP, and also in the Guild of Writers. While some of them are currently councilors or assistant councilors, the decision was mostly made from their developers point of view.
It is difficult to precisely say why we forked, as there is a bit of history that plays a role here.
Perhaps the best way of explaining it is to recap the events leading up to this:
(These are the events as we perceived them, not neccesarily the fully objective truth)
1) Over the past 18 months we heard nothing substantial from Almlys PyPRP-wise.
2) We invested a lot of time and effort in the additions to PyPRP.
3) The GoW was started and became popular. There was a growing push for centralization, and and linking to an external, nearly dead site for tools was becoming an annoyance, especially because the GoW site was fully alive. More and more new writers find their way here, further increasing the desire for keeping things centralized.
4) A month or two ago Almlys appeared, and among other things he accused us of doing an illegal fork (not abiding the GPL). (I think that that actually gave us the idea to do it in the first place.)
Working under someone who isn't involved for a long time and then suddenly accuses you of stuff you didn't do, is not someting that anyone likes.
5) Almlys announces in the same thread as point #4 that he thought pyprp was dead and wants to combine work on PyPRP and his 7D7 project.
We take this thread as a sign that Almlys has lost interest in uru and is focusing on 7D7
6) We did a major rewrite of most of the plugin code, which gives us essentially a whole new version of it.
7) The history mentioned before, along with the knowledge of Almlys flammable temper makes us decide to go solo. We take Almlys total absence from PyPRP development (aside from forum maintenance) as a sign that he has lost interest in Uru.
8) Because we know Almlys flammable temper, we hesitate to contact him early on.
As the day of the new plugin release closes, no one has contacted Almlys yet, so unfortunately, we announce the fork a bit too late to Almlys.
The situation now
We respect Almlys, and also his efforts on developing the first version of PyPRP.
We hope that he respects us, and the work we did in the past as well.
That being said, we agree that we might have handled the situation better, and apologize to Almlys for any offense we may have given him.
While we will not choose to work under Almlys again, we would like to invite him, once more, to join us in PyPRP development here at the Guild of Writers.
I hope that this informs you enough of the situation.
Regards,
--Trylon
as you have certainly noticed, there is a bit of confusion about the forking of PyPRP into GoW-PyPRP.
In this statement I will try to remove some of that confusion.
Forking
Basically a fork is a branch in the development process. A project is forked when a group of developers want to go down a different path and implement new features in a different way than the original authors of the software.
As long as the license permits it, this is perfectly legal.
In this case, PyPRP was under Gnu Public License (GPL), which allows forks and derivative works, as long as they abide by the GPL. Basically the GPL states that if you release anything, you must make the source code available too, give credit to the original author(s), and put the new project under GPL as well. We did just that.
Background
The decision to fork was made by a number of PyPRP developers who invested a lot of time in developing for PyPRP, and also in the Guild of Writers. While some of them are currently councilors or assistant councilors, the decision was mostly made from their developers point of view.
It is difficult to precisely say why we forked, as there is a bit of history that plays a role here.
Perhaps the best way of explaining it is to recap the events leading up to this:
(These are the events as we perceived them, not neccesarily the fully objective truth)
1) Over the past 18 months we heard nothing substantial from Almlys PyPRP-wise.
2) We invested a lot of time and effort in the additions to PyPRP.
3) The GoW was started and became popular. There was a growing push for centralization, and and linking to an external, nearly dead site for tools was becoming an annoyance, especially because the GoW site was fully alive. More and more new writers find their way here, further increasing the desire for keeping things centralized.
4) A month or two ago Almlys appeared, and among other things he accused us of doing an illegal fork (not abiding the GPL). (I think that that actually gave us the idea to do it in the first place.)
Working under someone who isn't involved for a long time and then suddenly accuses you of stuff you didn't do, is not someting that anyone likes.
5) Almlys announces in the same thread as point #4 that he thought pyprp was dead and wants to combine work on PyPRP and his 7D7 project.
We take this thread as a sign that Almlys has lost interest in uru and is focusing on 7D7
6) We did a major rewrite of most of the plugin code, which gives us essentially a whole new version of it.
7) The history mentioned before, along with the knowledge of Almlys flammable temper makes us decide to go solo. We take Almlys total absence from PyPRP development (aside from forum maintenance) as a sign that he has lost interest in Uru.
8) Because we know Almlys flammable temper, we hesitate to contact him early on.
As the day of the new plugin release closes, no one has contacted Almlys yet, so unfortunately, we announce the fork a bit too late to Almlys.
The situation now
We respect Almlys, and also his efforts on developing the first version of PyPRP.
We hope that he respects us, and the work we did in the past as well.
That being said, we agree that we might have handled the situation better, and apologize to Almlys for any offense we may have given him.
While we will not choose to work under Almlys again, we would like to invite him, once more, to join us in PyPRP development here at the Guild of Writers.
I hope that this informs you enough of the situation.
Regards,
--Trylon