Re: Patch Licensing Terms

[Paige DePol <lual@...>]

Roberto Ierusalimschy <roberto@inf.puc-rio.br> wrote:

> Jay Carlson <nop@nop.com> wrote:
> 
>> I haven't been paying attention; has any third-party code been
>> incorporated in PUC-Rio Lua?
> 
> No.
> 
> -- Roberto

I find that a bit amusing given the definition of a "power patch" from the
Lua Users Wiki:

"A power patch is a small patch to a source code distribution that makes
some useful change. Power patches are judged based on how few lines of code
are changed, general usefulness, and backwards compatibility. By limiting
them to localized changes, the chance that several such patches can work
together is high. It also keeps maintenance work to a minimum as new
versions of the source package are released. **Truly good patches will have
a short life, as the authors of the original program will incorporate them
into their code**."

I get that this definition is about power patches in general, however, if
Lua really does not accept *any patches ever* from the community then
perhaps the Wiki should be updated to reflect this policy?

Is the non-acceptance of third-party code for licensing issues, ideological
reasons, or both or neither reason? I know that the community has been given
the opportunity via this list to contribute ideas and feedback to the Lua
development process. I guess, other than general bug-fixes, I didn't realise
that community contributions weren't accepted into Lua. 

Not that it matters to me in relation to the creation of my patches, I do it
for educational purposes, for myself and others. Plus, I get to create my own
custom version of Lua, which is quite nice to have as well! I've never had an
entire programming language I could tweak as I saw fit, it's quite exciting! :D

~Paige