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4.5 Contributions To The Official FunnelWeb

Contributions to the official version of FunnelWeb code are welcome, although it may be some time before I will be able to find the time to incorporate the changes into the official version. Here are some of the issues relating to contributions to the official version.

Quality Issues

Contributions must be of sufficiently high standard to warrant inclusion in the official version. Whether a modification will be accepted will depend, amongst other things, on the following criteria.

- Does the modification fit in with the design goals of FunnelWeb, or is it just a case of creeping featurism?
- How well coded is the modification? Would it reduce the quality of the code?
- If the modification changes FunnelWeb's functionality, is this a desirable change? How will it impact on existing users? Does it change the semantics of existing FunnelWeb `.fw` files?
- Would it be quicker for me to make the modification myself than to work out how to incorporate the submitted modification?
- Does the change come with a corresponding addition to the regression test suite?

It is my goal to guard the integrity of the design and code of the official version of FunnelWeb and so I will probably be rather fussy about what I regard as a worthwhile modification.

Legal Issues

For various reasons, I have decided to maintain complete copyright over the official version of FunnelWeb, but release it under a GNU license each time it is updated. This means that, while you are free to create and distribute different versions of FunnelWeb, if you want your modifications to be incorporated into the official version, you will have to license copyright of the modifications to me (Ross Williams). Here's how it works:

    +------->------+----------<-------+
    |(mods by      |                  |
    | me)          V                  |
    |     +------------------+        |
    +--<--| My Official Copy |        ^
          |   Of FunnelWeb   |        |
          | Copyright (c) Me |        |
          +------------------+        |
     (Periodic GNU |                 / \
      release)     V                /   \  Programmer
          +-------------------+    /Legal\ signs away
          | Official GNU Copy |    \Filte/ copyright on
          +-------------------+     \ r /  modifications
     (Mods made    |                 \ /
      by random    |                  |
      programmer)  |                  ^
                   V                  |
                 +-----------------------+
                 | Modified GNU Version  |
                 +-----------------------+

This organization allows me to retain full use of the source code for any private, public or commercial purpose, and for the purpose of maintaining the integrity of the FunnelWeb language, while still assuring contributors that their contributions will become part of the public GNU version.

This policy is my current policy as at December 1999, but might change, depending on circumstances.

Webmaster Copyright © Ross N. Williams 1992,1999. All rights reserved.