I finally did it. I entered the Furi-source and stripped it off thos chat-panels and classes. Now i got a new client running. I also chaged the packet-structure and therefor parts of the code.

My problem here is this: William W. Wong (the developer of Furi) doesn´t want help writing Furi and there has been no update for over a year. I surely will modify the source quite a lot and I don´t think it is reasonable to still call it "Furi" afterwards (in case Wong comes up with a new version we´d have quite a conflict here).

Does anybody know how the GNU GPL copes with such a situation. I´d like to release a whole new client under a diferent name which would only be "based on Furi", but I don´t want to get into a conflict with Wong or the GNU Foundation.

Any advice is welcome. I will not release my client until I get this thing straight.

I dreamed of doing the same thing, because I belive FURI has the best underlying structure with the file search/candidate stuff. Of course I'm only beginning to understand the furi classes and so forth (i'm a graphics guy mostly), but the same thing occured to me.

I'd say this (just my opinion), if William doesn't answer any emails, which he doesn't appear to do, then just let him know what your doing, that your not making a profit from it, therefore no royalties are due to William. Then in your readme.txt give props to William for and say your client is based on the FURI client's codebase. Nuff said.

In asp/webstuff which is what i'm familiar with, the general rule is that if you modify/update or otherwise change source code by 20 - 25% (I can't remember which) its effectily yours (in the event that you have to prove it).

Maybe the GNU applies in a similar fashion. Personlly I've been composing a lengthy email of bugs and wishes for the next release. To hear you say he hasn't released an update to his client in over a year is disheartening given the amount of work I've already put into it.

Thus, I would LOVE to see you release a version of the FURI codebase, minus some of the cludgy stuff that slows it down and or doesn't work well.

I'd rather send you the email of bugs/wishes and have those considered for your relase. I'd even love to help with any of the graphics, buttons, or interface design!

Let me know if your interested in either my email that was to be send to william, my assistance, or both!

Best regards,
Hael

konrad_h great to hear u are geting somewhere, have been waiting to hear from u. this page has an e-mail address that might help:
http://www.gnutelliums.com/

I would be very eger to bata your Client. I was a hardware tech for 20 years. and have no fear of crashing things to find whats going on. I am also running a Mac which may be more interesting. Feel free to e-mail me or post in this form. I'll be watching and routing for u.

Walt, aka: lightstone

I already decided on what I will do:

I will publish my new client under the GNU GPL (which should be good enough for the GNU Foundation), give Credit to William W. Wong (which will really point out what important role he played in the development) and make the whole project a new client.

I am already changing the source quite a lot and it will be quite different from Furi once I have finished. What I really need is some more time. I will release the first source once I have ordered all the new packages and stripped the source of all unnecessary stuff. I will also include a small developers-doc which will explain what is to be done to compile the source.

But this will take at least a week, perhaps two.

I am making progress:

The new jar-file is already 34kb smaller then the Furi.jar (including all sourcefiles!).

A Mac, now that is interesting. As the new client will be 100% pure Java there is hardly anything I could do to improve performance on a Mac, but I´d love to know how well the Apple-JavaVirtualMachine implementation runs.

I am making further progress each day, but it is really is hard work and will still take some time until I have something to release.

I will let erverybody know through this forum when I see light at the end of the tunnel.

Greets,
Konrad

Well if you 'd like some help just drop me a note - I was just out looking for Gnutela client sources in Java cause using LiveWire leaves me wanting more features and Furi just needs a better interface. Since you already dived into the fray I might as well not re-invent the wheel by myself .
I'm more than willing to contribute!

Oooooops - the typing demon struck again - sorry for the junk posting guys but damph should read Damphyr.

To everybody who wants to contribute:

Once I have finished restructuring the packages, I will release a developers edition on my website. It will be password-protected and I will only give the pass to a few people who really want to take part in the development process. I will also make up a development guideline so that we can work in an organized fashion and make the new client clean and stable.

If you want to contribute you can contact me via a new e-mail-address i will soon set up and post here.

At the moment I am expecting to have the work done by the coming weekend, but it might as well take some more days.

Until then, there is not too much news to post here.

I am really looking forward to work with you all and I can hardly await the first release of the new client. I am already testing it under it´s new name and you might stumble upon it when connected to the gnetwork.

Respects,
Konrad

Since no one seems to have replied to your GNU licence question : the GNU licence is designed to permit and encourage exactly what you are doing. You are under no obligation to advise the person whose work you are adapting; the only obligation you are under is to make the source code available along with the program. Obviously, it is polite to inform the person who wrote the original, and of course, the original remains his copyright, though the new parts are your copyright. You must mention all the copyrights along the way - e.g., if someone takes your work and adapts it, he would need to mention the copyrights of both yourself and William.

That's the essence of it.

HTH

Dave.