[kris]

I'm in a quandary here, and could use some feedback:

It just came to my attention that certain folks are ripping parts of the Mango code and/or design (wholesale in certain cases) to produce their own versions of what Mango does in specific areas.

They say that imitation is the most sincere form of flattery, but I'm not sure this is case here.

For the 9 months I've been involved with D, I've seen people carve out their own little niche areas, or work on large, somewhat-overlapping projects (such as GUI) where the scope is just so vast that there's room to play. However, this is the first time I've seen anyone produce something (two things actually) that are not only ripped from the original D code, but are clearly intended to 'compete' against the ripped codebase.

In the past, it's been clear that some would have liked to adopt one or two of the Mango notions, yet did not do so. I put that down to "peer-respect", or "open-source ethics" (or whatever you'd like to call it) which helps to foster a feeling of community spirit. It certainly helped to avoid further splintering of effort ~ D needs that like a hole in the head.

Mango is open-source so that people are not afraid to use it, and can extend & modify it (and hopefully contribute back). I had hoped, perhaps naiively, that folks would make an effort to help shape Mango in alternate directions instead. It was certainly not intended that the efforts of those involved would be adopted in the manner noted.

What should one do here? Should the Mango license be adjusted to explicitly prohibit certain usage? What should be done with regard to the ripped code & design? If anything? Am I being unreasonably sensitive?

And, whatever happened to the "unwritten code of conduct" and developer ethics? If the community condones this kind of thing, then far fewer people will invest their time in producing anything of interest.

Appreciate your comments;

[teqdruid]

I would just put a clause in the license that requires any changes to be released, and any derivatives to be open-source.

[jcc7]

I'm unclear on what has been happening, but it sounds disturbing.

[larsivi]

I've looked at two 'suspicious' cases where the inspiration is astoundingly obvious, without any sort of mention of Mango and/or Kris. I haven't studied the code in detail though, such that I can point to specific lines of code. This I believe Kris must do himself.

I neither condone of this practice, nor think it should be let gone uncommented. I also find it strange that someone wants to implement the same high quality classes found in Mango.

[jcc7]

[kris]

Thank-you for your input.

For the time-being it has become necessary to change the Mango license to something which displeases me in the extreme; it will be altered again if and when something concrete happens to protect the community in general.

BTW: this is primarily with reference to the hoisting of ideas/design/implementation of the object-serialization and the object-to-io-layer bindings (IReadable, IWritable, IPickle, PickleRegistry) present within Mango.io ~ those idioms don't exactly represent some wild and ground-shaking notion, but they should still be protected from parasitic trollers.

[jcc7]

I haven't seen the offending library, so please forgive me if I make faulty assumptions. (I presume that the alleged guilty party has a conscience and it's not available for download anymore.)

[kris]