The following thread appears in BLOG:CMS :: Support Forum for some while but later the whole thread was deleted. Anyhow, my RSS feeds recorded it as:

# 1 cached at September 17, 2004, 12:00 pm

Topic: Compliance with GNU GPL

Message: Here's a request for the next version of Blog:CMS: please give proper credit to the makers of Nucleus and follow the GPL more closely.

As for previous posts mentioning the GNU GPL: there are, in fact, GPL violations in parts of Radek's source code in terms of removed copyright notices (often replaced with his own).

Blog:CMS is not different enough from Nucleus to have cost Radek 1000 hours of work. What Radek is claiming is that he spent over 25 weeks working full time to create Blog:CMS. Now unless he quit his job between December 2003 and April 2004, I don't see how he could have humanly spent that much time on Nucleus XE and Blog:CMS.

In regard to Radek's usual argument about BLOG:CMS being 3MB vs. Nucleus being 1MB:

- Of the 2MB difference 95% is in the plugins directory. Radek only wrote a handfull of these himself. Although he claims that over half were written by himself, a lot of them are actually modified versions of existing (GPLed) source code.

- The largest plugins, the JavaScript HTML editor, the syntax highligher and the PDF generator account for over half of this size increase. These plugins may have required some work by Radek to fix, but they certainly didn't take him 'over 1000' hours of work as they are all based on existing code.

I hope this clarifies the situation a little. As a message to Radek: please stop this ego trip. You've made a great customization of a good product, so please stop twisting the facts, pretending it's your own product and generally using it as a PR stunt for your amazon wishlist.

*sigh* That feels better.

Cheers,

Pieter.

# 2 cached at September 17, 2004, 3:10 pm

Topic: Compliance with GNU GPL

Message: About the time; it took me about 100+ hours to convert my phpNuke site to Blog:cms. I wrote just one plugin and made phpNuke -> Blog:cms converter script  using existing wordpress converter. Okay, some hours were used to "check-and-doublecheck" the sources, to add parameters, more abilities etc. And that 100 hours were used in 1,5 to 2 months of time (and yes, I am working fulltime, but I did some coding at work too and then weekends more fully and few hours everyday).
Of course my case is bad example, as I was/am new to Nucleus/blog:cms and 80% of time in coding were used to learn things and take the first steps (= 2 hours = 1 line of code :) ).

But I agree that GPLed source should contain both original wroters and modifyers credits/copys (thats what I do atleast). And with that, I am totally pro with Amazon wishlist - it is great way to show support. And I think it fits perfectly with this kind of project.

Just my .2c.

# 3 cached at September 17, 2004, 6:00 pm

Topic: Compliance with GNU GPL

Message: bigmouth.   nucleus cms is mentioned on BLOG:CMS homepage ( http://blogcms.com/ ).

If you want to help with the development, and contribute to 1.000 hours I worked on Nucleus CMS (making it BLOG:CMS), and increasing size from 1MB to 3MB, and usability, do it, otherwise, FUCK OFF!

# 4 cached at September 17, 2004, 9:48 pm

Topic: Compliance with GNU GPL

Message: To give credit to Radek: in my opinion the present versions of Nucleus and Blog:CMS almost are two different systems to the user, I am very grateful for the great additions Blog:CMS has added to Nucleus.
Regarding the hours spent: based on the very fast pace in which new versions, each being real improvements, appear, I think Radek claim is perfectly believable.
Finally, as far as I can remember Radek has started his wishlist after forumusers asking him why he did not have a method for donations as they wanted to give a troken of appreciation for his work on Blog:CMS. So accusing him of using Blog:CMS as PR stunt for his wishlist seems very unfair to me.

P.S.: Can't we keep the language stay civil here?

# 5 cached at September 18, 2004, 3:01 am

Topic: Compliance with GNU GPL

Message: I generally don't object to the fact that Blog:CMS is named (even branded) differently from Nucleus. I do resent that Radek is so anal about 'his' product even though he himself constantly falls short of giving credit where it is due.

Even if the 1000 hours claim is valid (of which I'm still not conviced) I doubt it is more than a fraction of the work that went into Nucleus itself over the past year.

I am aware that there are en passent references to Nucleus in the docs and on the site, but personally I just don't think they're adequate. I think Nucleus is a good piece of software engineering, and it deserves at least a link to the Nucleus website in the default installation post (rather than just the aforementioned wishlist...). This would benefit new users, since for additional plugins they might still want to look at the Nucleus project.

All of this is strictly on a moral level in the sense that Radek isn't violating the GPL by rebranding Nucleus or mentioning it only sparingly.

As far as the GPL is concerned, copyright messages and credits in the (PHP) source code are enough. This, sadly, is exactly where Radek falls short (as I mentioned before) and even commits plagiarism (be that knowingly or unknowingly).

In addition, it is not legal for him to include the appropriate comments in source and then publicly claim that he wrote the whole thing (e.g. the syntaxhighlighter and pdf modules are not his own).

Anyway, at the risk of Radek calling me names: I will contribute Nucleus at some time -- thanks for the suggestion. I will also be complying with the GPL (unlike Radek).

Cheers,

Pieter.

And more, cached at October 21, 2004, 12:33 pm

As far as I know this feature hasn't been implemented yet, despite previous requests.

I would like  full compliance with the GPL in Blog:CMS. Additionally I would like Radek to adhere to common decency and consider some of the following:

- Proper credit should be given to the original authors of Nucleus CMS in the PHP source. The authors should be listed before Radek himself in the default installation post.

- The various plugins that Radek derived from others' work should have proper credit given. Original copyright messages that were replaced with Radek's should be restored -- these are violations of the applicable licenses.

- Radek should not pretend that he wrote Blog:CMS from scratch. Although he does not claim it directly, he does absolutely nothing to correct someone who mistakenly attributes all of Blog:CMS to him. This in combination with the lack of references to Nucleus CMS constitute false adversting.

Cheers,

Pieter.