Sad Tale of Greed and Aspiration.

On Fri, 27 Aug 2010 06:17:51 -0700, Darryl Ramm wrote:

How is what you wrote in any way relevent to the point that effectlively
underground wide distribution of LK8000 is copyright infringement and
violation of the GPL? Like Michael I also find this behavior worrying.

Explanatory.

On thinking back to when LK8000 was forked, almost a year ago, IIRC the
trigger for the fork was a refusal of the XCSoar project leaders to
accept a large set of changes, all connected with the PNA implementation.
I have no idea why this happened, but it could well have been due to
source incompatibility, since at the same time Max was cleaning up and
refactoring the main code base in an effort to improve its
maintainability.

All I know was that the then main PNA developer vanished from sight for a
while before setting up the LK8000 fork. In the interim XCSoar 5.2.4
appeared. It did not, and still does not, have an official PNA release.
Anybody running XCSoar 5.2.4 on a PNA is, like me, running one of Max
Kellerman's two unofficial versions. I'm very grateful for them:
otherwise I'd still be running 5.2.2.

I don't know where that leaves your theory about the LK8000 project
refusing to pass updates back to the root project: there's a big
difference between a refusal to contribute and having that contribution
rejected.


--
martin@ | Martin Gregorie
gregorie. | Essex, UK
org |

On Aug 27, 2:28*pm, Martin Gregorie
wrote:
On Fri, 27 Aug 2010 06:17:51 -0700, Darryl Ramm wrote:
How is what you wrote in any way relevent to the point that effectlively
underground wide distribution of LK8000 is *copyright infringement and
violation of the GPL? Like Michael I also find this behavior worrying.

Explanatory.

On thinking back to when LK8000 was forked, almost a year ago, IIRC the
trigger for the fork was a refusal of the XCSoar project leaders to
accept a large set of changes, all connected with the PNA implementation.
I have no idea why this happened, but it could well have been due to
source incompatibility, since at the same time Max was cleaning up and
refactoring the main code base in an effort to improve its
maintainability.

All I know was that the then main PNA developer vanished from sight for a
while before setting up the LK8000 fork. In the interim XCSoar 5.2.4
appeared. It did not, and still does not, have an official PNA release.
Anybody running XCSoar 5.2.4 on a PNA is, like me, running one of Max
Kellerman's two unofficial versions. I'm very grateful for them:
otherwise I'd still be running 5.2.2.

I don't know where that leaves your theory about the LK8000 project
refusing to pass updates back to the root project: there's a big
difference between a refusal to contribute and having that contribution
rejected.

--
martin@ * | Martin Gregorie
gregorie. | Essex, UK
org * * * |

Martin

This is not really irrelevant to the issue at hand of whether XK80000
is meeting source code provision requirements of the GPL or not. I
have never made any comment about the provision of code changes to the
the original XCSoar project, or those developers accepting or not
those changes, etc. And whatever happened there does not modify the
rights of the original copyright owners or modify any of the GPL
license terms.

The original developers do not have to be provided with any special
access any different to anybody else, they do not need to like the
changes to "their code" or approve them. If somebody else wants to
contribute but they have a falling out and that developer(s) takes the
code and branch/rewrite it and makes it better -- then too bad. And if
those changes becomes popular -- maybe a sign they should have
listened to those developers. And maybe sometimes everybody is better
off with multiple branches, especially if they address different uses/
end-users better.

Developers working with GPL code are mostly free to do whatever they
want, including things that original developers do not agree with -
but they need to make clear those changes have been made and they need
to provide the source code to the user community in the ways I've
outlined in other posts in this thread. That is the apparent issue
here.

Darryl

On Fri, 27 Aug 2010 14:53:24 -0700, Darryl Ramm wrote:

This is not really irrelevant to the issue at hand of whether XK80000 is
meeting source code provision requirements of the GPL or not. I have
never made any comment about the provision of code changes to the the
original XCSoar project

Somebody up-thread said that not submitting changes constituted a GPL
violation. I thought that was you: consequently I apologise for the
misattribution.

Developers working with GPL code are mostly free to do whatever they
want, including things that original developers do not agree with - but
they need to make clear those changes have been made and they need to
provide the source code to the user community in the ways I've outlined
in other posts in this thread. That is the apparent issue here.

Agreed.

I've looked at the binary I have and can't work out what licensing
conditions apply, though GPL (version not specified) seems to be implied.


--
martin@ | Martin Gregorie
gregorie. | Essex, UK
org |

At 21:28 27 August 2010, Martin Gregorie wrote:

On thinking back to when LK8000 was forked, almost a year ago, IIRC the
trigger for the fork was a refusal of the XCSoar project leaders to
accept a large set of changes, all connected with the PNA implementation.


John Wharington, who took lead of the GPLed XCSoar project from the start,
was the one who decided the source code needed overhauling for XCSoar 6.0.
Paul (the LK8000 programmer) wanted to concentrate on new features. To do
both at the same time required very substantial changes to the working
methods Paul had been using (and I can understand is very difficult
regardless); consequently Paul was frustrated at the change of direction.
To be fair he wasn't the only one, and another developer left the project
at the same time. I think the subsequent project 'fork' was inevitable at
this point because Paul and the XCSoar project had different objectives.

Along with the change of direction, John wanted some of the new features
Paul was working on to be specifically excluded from XCSoar, the
LX8000-style interface being perhaps the most significant example.

I feel that making that decision to temporarily change the focus of the
project was entirely John's right - scan through the archives of the
xcsoar-devel lists since the early days and reach your own conclusion.

I expect I've oversimplified the situation, but that's the basics.

Regards,

Simon