Besides the parts already discussed, there is a technical aspect. Under
sourceforge's policy, you can ask to take over a dead project. If I
remember correctly, it entails one of the many trouble ticket styles,
but read the docs for details. Their policy includes contacting the
original developer and asking for his opinion.

In the (rare) case that the developer says "no", but still doesn't
revive the project, just fork it.

Maxim Veksler wrote:
> What have you done in a similar occasions?
I don't quite remember what the procedure for taking over PgOleDb
(originally at
http://gborg.postgresql.org/project/oledb/projdisplay.php) was. I think
it involved trying to contact the original maintainer without success. I
then contacted the gborg maintainers, and as the original project
contained nothing really useful, they just handed me control over the
project.

I tagged the original code
(http://cvs.pgfoundry.org/cgi-bin/cvsweb.cgi/oledb/oledb/?only_with_tag=LAST_MAREK),
and then started from scratch (see
http://cvs.pgfoundry.org/cgi-bin/cvsweb.cgi/oledb/oledb/AUTHORS?annotate=1.1&only_with_tag=LAST_MAREK).

Quite a while later I was contacted by Marek, the original maintainer,
who claimed I didn't give him credit for the work (a violation of the
LGPL). He was referring to the similar structure of the programs as
evidence that my driver was derived from his. I told him that it wasn't,
and that the similarity, such that there was, was due to the fact that
both projects started off from the ATL template generator of Visual
Studio. I did, as a result, give him credit in the AUTHORS file for
starting the project originally
(http://cvs.pgfoundry.org/cgi-bin/cvsweb.cgi/oledb/oledb/AUTHORS?annotate=1.5),
as well as another failed attempt to get a similar project off the
ground. As things stand, mine was the only one that was able to actually
connect to the database and send queries.

I did offer Marek to port one aspect of his original code to the new
code. It was something I never got around to figuring out how to do, and
his code did. He never replied to that offer.

Aside from that, I vaguely remember a case where I wanted to give a
project I opened on sourceforge a name that was already taken by a dead
project with no code released. I asked for the name using the SF
procedures, and after a little while (about two weeks, IIRC) I was given it.

I hope this helps,
Shachar

-- 
Shachar Shemesh
Lingnu Open Source Consulting ltd.
Have you backed up today's work? http://www.lingnu.com/backup.html


=================================================================
To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with
the word "unsubscribe" in the message body, e.g., run the command
echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Reply via email to