Just before seven this morning Vishal Kothari got back to me about the issues I rasied on
Saturday regarding the contact grabbing package he put together. After a short series of emails later all the issues I had raised had been resolved with the exception of licensing.
With a little time to spare this afternoon I explored the
flumpcakes.co.uk site a little more deeply and discovered an email I hadn't spotted last year. An hour and a half later I had a reply from the original author expressing his willingness to release his original code under the GPL. This enabled me to release my code under the same license clearing up any problems with the 'meta' script.
All told, a reasonable part of a productive day.
With the story complete it's time for the moral:
- A lot can be achieved when you're open and willing to talk. With me questioning his licensing it would not have been surprising if Vishal had jumped on to the defensive. Instead he remained co-operative and we were able to resolve the issues quickly.
- It's important to include a copyright notice in each file. I hadn't done this and it gave Vishal reason to doubt whether I was really the author. It was easy enough to sort out but it's needless confusion.
- If you're not releasing your code under a specific license consider stating why not. As James, the guy behind flumpcakes.co.uk said, "Most people see[sic] to assume that when
source code is released if it doesn't come with a license then it's GPL." Attempt to anticipate the questions your users are likely to have and prevent the need for assumptions by answering those questions.
