Re: Announcement of wxLua

["John Belmonte" <jvb@...>]

I'd like to comment about this, although I only know the details as far as
posted to lua-l.

Just because someone has the ability to write a program doesn't necessarily
mean they are aware of the legal or political aspects of programming.  I
started programming at a young age and I can tell you I had little
understanding of copyrights or software licenses... that came a few decades
later and with the help of a kind person here and there.

You may have done this so forgive me, but it may have been better to first
contact the person in question in confidence.  This way it's possible to
judge their understanding of their faults and "eagerness to correct them"
before resorting to criticism in public forums.

-John Belmonte


David Cuny wrote:
> Everett L.(Rett) Williams wrote:
>
> > As Mr. Winwood has been notified on the wx developers
> > group, he did not write wxlua, but merely converted a set
> > of code written by another programmer to be included in
> > another language.
>
> I'm David Cuny, and Rett is correct - almost all the wxLua code
> that Paul Windood takes credit for is my own work, under my
> copyright, published under the LGPL. You can find it as part of
> my wxBasic project:
>
>       http://wxbasic.sourceforge.net
>
> In addition to contacting the wxWindows list, I also contacted
> the maintainers of Lua, who were quick to notify Paul and remove
> his site from the official Lua pages.
>
> Paul soon contacted me via email, and posted the following on the
> wxWindows list:
>
>    > I Hereby apologize for using some parts of the code
>    > from wxBasic. I have deleted the code from the website
>    > and it is hereby withdrawn.
>
> What Paul refers to as 'some parts of the code' makes up most of
> wxLua (except for Lua, of course!). And as Rett noted, the use of
> my code was never an issue - it was the total and complete lack of
> credit for my work.
>
> I don't want to minimize the amount of work that Paul has put into
> wxLua. He created his own Lua-specific glue code, so the
> wxWindows methods would be exposed to Lua, and Lua callback
> routines could be triggered. In addition to this, he also reorganized
> my code, even converting a QBasic utility program into Lua. All this
> was a considerable effort on his part, and it appears to work quite
> well. He deserves credit for what he's done.
>
> Paul then privately wrote to me:
>
>    > I have sent another message where I have apologized for
>    > using your code.
>    > I sincerely apologize once more, I was a bit nieve and I
>    > incorrectly thought I had modified enough!
>    > Obvously not. Sorry.
>    > As you can imagine the 'modifications' have involved many
>    > hours of work, and so I have a question.
>    > Is there any way that I can use the sources from you than I
>    > have done, what do I have to do in terms of copyright etc?
>    > What are the requirements for my using your code in wxLua.
>    > What are your requirements?
>
> A number of emails ensued, and I think he's clear on the point that
> his 'modifications' do not void my copyright.
>
> Why Paul chose not to share any credit for wxLua in the first place
> is something that only he can explain. But I'm in good company.
> Robin Dunn, the author of wxPython, informed me that Paul
> apparently created his wxLua web page by taking the wxPython
> documentation and replacing each occurance of 'wxPython' with
> 'wxLua'.
>
> I'd like to reiterate that, once these matters were brought to
> his attention, Paul seemed eager to correct them. I don't expect this
> sort of thing from Paul in the future, and I look forward to a release
> of wxLua that respects my copyright.
>
> -- David Cuny