From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Tim X Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.help Subject: Re: Question about updating ascii.el file on the wiki Date: Sat, 08 Jan 2011 10:12:31 +1100 Organization: Unlimited download news at news.astraweb.com Message-ID: <878vyw9ulc.fsf@puma.rapttech.com.au> References: NNTP-Posting-Host: lo.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain X-Trace: dough.gmane.org 1294443761 26754 80.91.229.12 (7 Jan 2011 23:42:41 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@dough.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 7 Jan 2011 23:42:41 +0000 (UTC) To: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org Original-X-From: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Sat Jan 08 00:42:37 2011 Return-path: Envelope-to: geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([199.232.76.165]) by lo.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1PbLx6-0005KQ-Us for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Sat, 08 Jan 2011 00:42:37 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1]:47862 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1PbLx6-0008LZ-EI for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Fri, 07 Jan 2011 18:42:36 -0500 Original-Path: usenet.stanford.edu!news.glorb.com!news2.glorb.com!border6.newsrouter.astraweb.com!news.astraweb.com!border5.newsrouter.astraweb.com!not-for-mail Original-Newsgroups: gnu.emacs.help User-Agent: Gnus/5.13 (Gnus v5.13) Emacs/24.0.50 (gnu/linux) Cancel-Lock: sha1:AMOS6eFTfZNi/6XgRNaxakhinW0= Original-Lines: 39 Original-NNTP-Posting-Host: ae3fb81e.news.astraweb.com Original-X-Trace: DXC=EfTPW:6Yeh; 6k]7j^a\l<5L?0kYOcDh@:7^o:UA4R?c5MT]ifIF12; 5]G; 2>V^?kW3CAkl5c@Xgk>H]cBRl5W4> List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Original-Sender: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Errors-To: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.help:78307 Archived-At: "Steven W. Orr" writes: > There's great little module I keep in my arsenal called ascii.el > > http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/ascii.el > > It hasn't been updated since Apr 5, '07. When I compile it under 23.1.1, it > complained about a few obsolete functions, so, I look the liberty of fixing them. > > In the spirit of giving back, should I upload it under a new filename? Or do I > need to contact the author and hope he's still alive? Does anyone care? > the polite thing to do is to try and contact the author and provide him with diffs he can apply. However, frequently an author of some small utility has moved on and is no longer interested in maintaining the code or cannot be contacted, which then leaves you with various options depending on what sort of license the code is under. If the code is under an appropriate open source license, you can probably modify it and make your updated version available without too many problems. Note that some licenses will require that you make the original available somewhere as well. In general, for small utility type bits of code like you refer to, I think most people are fairly reasonable. As long as you can show you made reasonable attempts to contact the author and get the changes added and as long as you make sure the author is credited in any new version, you will likely be OK and will have done the right thing. Of course, this assumes the world is populated by reasonable people, which unfortunately all too often, it isn't. Tim -- tcross (at) rapttech dot com dot au