May I fork this codebase?

[mark-wiemer]

Hi @zero-plusplus, we've spoken earlier about incorporating your extension into an extension pack, and I respect your wish to keep your extension out of it. However, I do believe it offers great features and benefits to AHK coders, so I'd like to fork your codebase and make changes myself. This way, you wouldn't be seen as responsible for the changes, but of course I'd credit you as the original author. Does that seem reasonable?

Thanks,
Mark

[zero-plusplus]

Please stop with the fork.

What happened to what we talked about here and here?

And here is what you said.

I understand your position. I won't use your code in any way, don't worry :)

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Do I need to explain it all again from scratch?

I am not developing for AHK coders. I develop for the users who install my extensions.

I put a lot of effort and time into getting users to choose my extensions.

But what if forked my program is incorporated into a larger extension?

What happens to the value of my extension?

I have explained it many times. But you, working for AHK coders, do not fully understand my thinking.

I again suggest that we keep our distance from each other as this difference in awareness creates problems.

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PS

I feel you are looking for loopholes in my statement, so I will speak more clearly. (Yes, I did talk about copying and pasting, but not about forking.)

Please stop all actions that appropriates my work (I'll try to be vague here). This includes, for example, someone else forking my extension and you forking yours.

This is my intention, unlike a licence. It means that your actions are an impediment to my activities and I cannot accept them.

I will not allow anything in the future and will refuse to allow anything to be used without my permission.

I dare to speak out strongly because this is about work product.
But, I do not reject or condemn all of your activities.

It is simply that our ideas are not compatible.

Doesn't make sense to duplicate our efforts.

Earlier, when asked about the state of parser development, you said the above.

However, the same effort can result in very different end products from one developer to another.

So it is by no means in any sense meaningless, in my opinion. (Admitting this in the first place would mean that my activities are meaningless, as there are other people making AutoHotkey parsers than me.)

It seems like a waste of time to go down a path that someone else has already taken, but it's actually a lot of fun! 😄

Thank you.

[jkyeung]

@zero-plusplus - I think Mark is acting in good faith and is not looking for any loopholes. In fact, I think he has tried very hard to respect your wishes to the best of his ability, which includes trying to balance several considerations that sometimes overlap and sometimes conflict:

• Provide himself learning and enjoyment
• Provide value to the community (and I would argue this is more than just the "AHK community")
• Honor other people's explicit wishes

In my opinion, your position is difficult to understand, and therefore difficult to fully comply with. Your repo is public, and it is published under the MIT license. Those are deliberate choices that you made, and they are fundamentally incompatible with your stated wishes and intentions.

I have a vague recollection that you may have tried to explain why you made those choices; and if you did, I think I might have eventually worked out some delicate, fragile understanding how you could reconcile those choices with your stated wishes and intentions. But it is hard to maintain that understanding over time. If you indeed had some written explanation, then you should at minimum put that into the README of your repo, because without constant re-reading, and re-understanding, your position is simply illogical.

I strongly urge you to choose a different, more restrictive license that is aligned with your wishes. Keep in mind you can write your own license. You could look for an existing one that is close to what you want, and then modify it. In fact, I suspect that Mark would be willing to help you with that, since I truly believe he is trying to respect you and your work.

If all this sounds too difficult, or too much trouble, then it is really upon you to make your repo private instead of public. That might mean some of what you wanted to accomplish by having it public is no longer available to you. But the amount of time, effort, and emotional energy you are putting into defending your work suggests that the cost of having your work public is more than you can accept.

[mark-wiemer]

I agree with @jkyeung on just about everything. You don't need to apologize--you're stating your thoughts. And I second their advice for a new license. The MIT license is very permissive, and other folks will reasonably see it and think they can fork your repo without asking. I would strongly suggest simply making this repo private so that others do not copy it, and then work to find or write a license that suits your needs before making it public again.

[zero-plusplus]

I don't want to reinvent the wheel

You described my extension as unique, but most of it is just reinventing the wheel. It was tedious and painful for me, but necessary.

I am not developing for AHK coders. I develop for the users who install my extensions.

This was to express the difference in the size of the communities we were looking at.

You are referring to the entire AHK user base, I am referring to the AHK users who utilize my extension.

I want to create a standard development environment for AutoHotkey, not two standard development environments.

I want to create my own development environment.
This is one of my dreams and a problem I would like to solve with my own hands.

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Unfortunately we can't seem to understand each other.

I enjoy competition in extension development.
I understand your stance, but if you apply it directly to me, I lose one of the pleasures.

It will certainly take several years to surpass your extension.

That's why I enjoyed the position I'm in now, where I've been able to grow freely while looking several years into the future. I never thought that this position could be easily shaken by a single forked proposal.

You are correct, there is no problem in terms of licensing. My words mean nothing in the MIT license.

So I am going to throw out the MIT license and start over from scratch with a new license that does not waive all copyrights in the new repository.

[zero-plusplus]

Don't worry, I do not think you were rude, and I was not offended by anything you said. I also don't believe you did or said anything that you need to apologize for. I'm glad for the dialogue.

Thank you. I'm glad we could have a dialogue too.

[mark-wiemer]

OK, I see, you want to create your own environment, not one that everyone can collaborate on and improve. I understand that--for you this is a personal project, and that's totally OK. I'm glad you're starting anew without the MIT license, that will certainly resolve questions like this in the future.

Well, if anyone would like to join me, I'll be writing my own advanced debugger for AHK now over at AHK++ :)

[zero-plusplus]

A few days have passed and I have cooled down again.

I apologize again for my lack of understanding and assumptions about licensing that had created a major misunderstanding.

My objectives and the license's objectives were very different. It was only natural that our conversations should have crossed paths, as my fault had caused our assumptions about each other to be so far off.

I will be careful not to repeat the same mistake by making my objectives and licenses as consistent and clearer as possible in new project.

I really hope to see your extension grow and develop as your debugger and integrated development environment.

I will try to develop an independent extension that will be attractive and noteworthy in the new project for my own enjoyment.

After posting this comment, I will double-check and correct for any disrespectful content in the maintenance stop reports, etc. that I may have written before my head cooled down. I am truly sorry.

Finally, I will be temporarily disabling my Github sponsorship going forward. As long as the sponsor is still in place, it seems that it cannot be disabled, so I apologize for the inconvenience, please discontinue the continuation of the sponsorship.

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I have reviewed it many times and I hope you didn't find anything wrong with my writing.