Gavin F. MacKenzie's XML files rescued from web archives

May God bless your soul. :-) No, seriously, thank you for this. I think a lot of folks use this lib, and have to go to the web archive to get it and all. Now it'll have a permanent place.

-- Premshree Pillai http://www.livejournal.com/users/premshree/

While I understand your motives, I wouldn't that lightly change author and copyright. While I personally think that Gavin would have no problem with that, one never knows (maybe there are employers or other right holders involved). If a script of this size has no license attached, you're simply not legally allowed to use it - it's as easy as that. If you want to keep it in the library, better change the Author back to what it originally was and don't claim it to be MIT licensed where it actually isn't. Besides that, both files are available as part of rebXR (an XML-RPC implementation for REBOL written by me), bundled with permission of Gavin. rebXR is available at http://earl.strain.at/space/rebXR -- Best regards, Andreas

Great advice, thanks :-) I changed the author and licensing information. I know that the files are bundled as part of rebXR, but it isn't widely understood that to do *any* decent XML processing one needs to turn to an XML-RPC library. Also, what terms did Gavin use when he made them available to you? So far, that seems to be the only information we have at all about what terms we available for us when using the xml library. I am very foggy on the concept of implied copyright and what-not. His name is the listed author, so I think that means he is to be considered the creator and copyright holder. Since there were no business names listed, I have to assume that this was his sole creation, and was outside the control of an employer. I honestly don't want to infringe on his created works, but we haven't heard anything from or about him recently. My own attempts to find him have resulted in dead-ends. Aren't there supposed to be guidelines for works going into the public domain if nobody is able to contact the original author or copyright holder? *sigh* I hate legal stuff. Kind Regards, Brian Wisti http://coolnamehere.com/

Thanks.....the files are now published in the REBOL.org Script Library with Gavin's name as the author, and the license as "none". REBOL.org treats a license of "none" to mean "we don't know what the license is: you'll need to contact the author for clarification." So the scripts are now published in the Library without taking any rights away from Gavin. Of course, he may not want us to publish his work that way.....If he contacts us, we'll remove it the same day. That would be a pity -- it's an excellent body of work that (almost) vanished from sight when his personal website vanished. I appreciate that the files are available in a ZIP from Andreas' website -- but that is not easy to find. Several people have tried and failed to find those scripts, and then asked on one of the REBOL forums for a hint. The scripts are published on REBOL.org with Brian as the owner. An owner, as far as REBOL.org is concerned, is someone who can update the script -- it does not imply copyright or any other rights. If Gavin joins the Library, Brian can drop ownership in favour of Gavin, or they (and Andreas) could all jointly own the scripts. Brian's mentioned testing the scripts and, if necessary, publishing updates and fixes. We may need to tread slightly carefully there as we do not know Gavin's original licensing conditions -- a derivative work may not be permitted. I suggest, Brian, you do the testing. And, if changes are needed, we'll have to try another round of contacting Gavin. If that fails, we'll need to think again. These scripts are important, so i am glad that Brian has taken some steps to make them more generally available. Gavin's rights and intentions are also important, so it is good that Andreas raised the issues, and that Brian acted according. I hate the legal stuff as well -- let's all just try to at with good faith and common sense; that should avoid most of the pitfalls, Sunanda.

Very good, thanks.

Yes, I personally fully support the idea of making the XML libs avail more easily. I think thats now a decent solution to live with. -- Best regards, Andreas