Apparently, Kirstenlee finally
reacted (after 15 days without replying my questions, ignoring them), but instead of apologizing, he persists !
Here is what you can read on his blog, and my reply (and questions) about it:
No, Mr Kirsten, it *is* the Cool VL Viewer
code, with the exception of the 600Kb large diff that you can see (and easily reproduce yourself)
here. Yes, you changed the skin (which is not part of this diff), but what makes the heart of a program, its code, is just 99.99% of Cool VL Viewer's (99.99% = 100% - diff size without context lines, i.e. 225Kb of changed lines in the diff (lines prefixed with "+" in the diff) divided by 27Mb of sources code, excluding all XML and textures or binary files), with the remaining 0.01% from you (or others: the post-processing shaders and code is indeed probably Phoenix'). So, the FACT is (because there is no other possibility, given the amount of changes between the Cool VL Viewer and any other TPVs), that you are using the Cool VL Viewer code (which is fine by me, but see below what is
NOT fine).
Oh... and could you pretty please point us with any diff or patch that represents
your actual code contribution ?.. Because you know, my and other TPVs' contributions to the Cool VL Viewer are all dutifully listed in
each release note and (for pre-v1.26 versions), on the
patches & credits page, and the incremental diffs are available for each new release after v1.26.0.0,
here (but you perfectly know this since you largely used (and obviously, abused) this patches repository)...
Headers have been changed (else I won't have had to strip them off before doing the diffing between the two source code trees). You can't take the code from a GPL viewer such as the Cool VL Viewer and replace the License by the LGPL one without first asking permission from the authors; the other way around is possible, that's even why the LGPL was written in the first place: to allow libraries code with looser license (LGPL) to be included into a code tree that got a stricter license (GPL).
And my actual point was not even about License headers, but about the removal of the mention of the Cool VL Viewer (replaced with S19 mentions) from the very comments of my very own contributions and, , the removal of the FULL page of credits in the About floater of "your" viewer.
You are NOT permitted to remove the names of the original authors of the viewer code (starting with Lindens' names...) to replace them with this simple "S series project viewer codename 'blackbird' brought to life by KL." phrase, like if you were the sole author !!!And it is NOT intact, obviously:
you removed the copyright from the only user-visible part of the viewer: the authors & credits UI !!!I never said otherwise, as long as you don't remove existing credits for code you did not write yourself...
Wrong, when you reuse the code source of a GPL viewer and change the headers for some of its source files for a LGPL one (i.e. stricter license changed into a looser one).
If you share your builds of a viewer, you are required to give proper credit for the original authors and contributors, even if you changed 90% of the code in it (which is obviously not the case here).
You are requested to reinstate the proper and full "Authors & Credits" page, and since it is so obvious that "your" viewer is just a fork of the Cool VL Viewer,
I'd appreciate if you would clearly point it out somewhere, in the credits or at least on your BLOG or download page.
Oh ? You like images ? Here are just a few more, then:
As you can see (I loaded S19's About floater into the Cool VL viewer to show it side by side with the original and avoid running the virus-infected S19 myself), the only author for S19 would be Mr Kirsten himself !!!
And here is one of the examples of a file ripped off the Cool VL Viewer (the appearance manager implements the Current Outfit Folder (COF) code and the Cool VL Viewer is very well known for its unique way of doing it, using an outfit.xml file to save and restore the avatar outfit, instead of the COF), file in which the ONLY changes are in the comments (my comments in my very own code !), and to replace the mention of the Cool VL Viewer with Kirsten S19 !... You will find more such occurrences by browsing the
raw diff.