The B9-PWings-Fork debacle : Part 2

I had dug deeper into this, and found some more interesting evidences, that can explain why things happened this way.

Historic

I will enumerate them ordered by date.

November 9, 2019

jrodrigv, coming back from absence, asked to B9-PWings-Fork CKAN identifier to be redirected back to his repository by opening CKAN#7486

Rafterman82 (Jebman82 on Forum) promptly agreed with it.

Note that the B9-PWings-Fork was still pinpointing to Jebman82's Forum Thread. The only change jrodrigv requested was redirecting the download from rafterman82's repo to his own.

References:

November 16, 2019

"An user that asked for having this name removed", unaware from CKAN#7486, opened a new pull request asking the same.

Both jrodigv and Rafterman82 promptly answered back - acknowledging that the change will happen.

The pull request was made by "An user that asked for having this name removed" on the same day.

References:

September 14, 2020

On September 14, 2020, tetraflon created an entry on SpaceDock for his own fork, called B9 Procedural Wings Modified Continued and asked SpaceDock to index his fork on CKAN.

Unfortunately, he used the Rafterman82/Jebman82's Forum Thread on the SpaceDock database, and somehow this issued an automatic pull request, CKAN PL#8144.

This pull request was automatically generated by SpaceDock on behalf of tetraflon, to add B9 Procedural Wings Modified Continued to CKAN.

Please direct questions about this pull request to tetraflon.

Mod details:
Name = B9 Procedural Wings Modified Continued
Author = tetraflon
Abstract = Alternative B9 PWings with unlimited size and option to define your wings by angle
License = MIT
Homepage = https://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/index.php?/topic/175197-13x14x15x16x17x18x19x-b9-procedural-wings-fork-go-big-or-go-home-update-40-larger-wings/
Description =
Alternative B9 PWings with unlimited size and option to define your wings by angle
Modified based on CarnationRED's fork
Original Version of this Modification by 01010101lzy

It worth to be noted that this pull request, on not a single moment, mentioned Rafterman82, Jebman82 or jrodrigv on it. The name of the fork is not the same neither.

It also worths to mention that Rafterman82 answered to it on the day after, explicitly stating that he is planning to continue to maintain his fork.

References:

December 3, 2020

The pull request was merged without the explicit consent from Rafterman82. The resulting commit is this one.

The alleged reason was "abandonment".

(should I remember you that Rafterman82/Jebman82 was fighting a cancer at that time?)

References:

December 5, 2020

By bad luck, the new fork has a hard dependency on FAR that it's not present on Rafterman82/Jebman82's fork. And this started to cause problems on the field.

References:

Thoughts

When tetraflon created his SpaceDock entry, I doubt this would be the aftermath he was expecting. He named his fork properly, his only mistake was to pinpoint Jebman82's Thread instead of creating a new one.

Somehow, SpaceDock's automatic Pull Request generator decided to create the PR on B9-PWings-Fork instead of using a more appropriated B9-PWings-Modified as it was used on the tetraflon's repository.

I want to stress again that nobody had authorised CKAN to merge the Pull Request, they did it at their own discretion - justifying the action on the "silence means consent" concept.

Unfortunately, pertinent legislation (not to mention Forum rules and practices) does not support their decisions. We are talking Intelectual Property here.

What the CKAN guys should had done is to refuse the Pull Request, asking tetraflon to create a new netkan file (b9-pwings-modified for example), a new thread on the Forum, and then mark B9-PWings-Fork as an alternative, as it is being done with FAR for years already.

This would be the Right Thing™ to be done!

Rerouting the download to the tetraflon fork on b9-pwings-fork (and keeping the Forum's link to Rafterman82/Jebman82 one!) is something called misrepresentation (or impersonation, depending of who is misbehaving), and this is expressly forbidden by most Open Source licences.

And in some USA states...

Lisias T
2021/05/19
Edited on 2023/08/01