[PLUG] What to do when you can't find the author?

[Roderick A. Anderson]

Keith Lofstrom wrote:
> On Tue, Nov 15, 2005 at 08:24:07AM -0800, Roderick A. Anderson wrote:
> 
>>The author of some JavaScript code seems to have disappeared off the 
>>... 
>>doesn't even show up in a whois.  ( Much of the site is saved at 
>>archive.org ).
> 
> 
> ... including his cell phone number (214-XXX-XXXX Dallas TX area).  
> "whois fvalidate.com" lists contact information for him, in Plano
> (a suburb NE of Dallas), and an email address on gmail, most 
> recently changed in April 2005.  I suggest trying those. 
> 
> If THAT comes up empty, you might send an email to the North
> Texas Linux User's Group ( ntlug.org ) and ask them if anyone
> knows of him and his current status, or of the name of any
> Java users groups that cover that portion of Dallas.  


Wow!  I should have guessed you would think of the right magic.  It 
never even occured to me to look for fvalidate.com.  Plus 1and1 was the 
"last" hosting company.

I'll give the gmail account a try.

>>correct some functionality in the code and possibly release it.  Where 
>>do I stand legally since it is not OSS?  All he asked is that he be 
>>recognized as the author and if it was used commercially make a 
>>"donation" of $5 - $30 per application it is used in ( via. PayPal ).
>>
>>Semi-gory details.  The code package is fValidate.  The author is Peter 
>>Bailey.  The domain is peterbailey.net .
> 
> 
> Is there a registered copyright?  Is the source open (that is, readable
> and available) but not free?  If Mr Bailey has gone to the Great Coding
> Project In The Sky, there might be some issues with releasing the exact
> same code on another site, but probably no major problem if you
> refactored the code significantly enough, then started a fork under an open
> source license.

I'll look again.  This just came up this AM when I started looking for 
the documentation.  I was recalling the bits-and-pieces from emmory.

> Or, since he retains copyright and may be commercializing his code, you
> may find that the fValidate.com site comes up in a few weeks with an
> order form for the code - $99 down, $99 a month for 99 year.  Paranoia...
> 
> ----

I thought of you and dirvish as I wondered if something had happened to him.

> About 1.5 years ago, JW Schultz of (IP address near the Bay Area) died.
> It took nearly 6 months to learn the facts of his death, since he was
> so very private and secretive that we did not even know his first name. 
> However, his dirvish code was open source, so I put it up on a server
> and opened it up to development, during the time we were waiting for
> more info.  After about a year of public involvement, we have 87 users
> on the mailing list and contributions coming in from all over the world,
> as well as some pretty significant wins at high profile sites ( OSU
> OSL, Berkeley, Cambridge, Dutch Public Television, etc).  
>  
> That is what open source permits.  If you don't like your own work
> or data getting dragged down when another project's leader goes
> [ missing | insane | dead ], consider investing your time in something
> with an open source license rather than something closed or encumbered. 
> There may be enough other users of fValidate in the same pickle that
> you can work together to write a replacement, if Mr. Bailey is no
> longer able to support you.
> 
> Keith
> 

Thanks
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