Another bother about my modifications to your amazing Zigbee driver

Code Archives Markus Project
#1

Continuing the discussion from [Release] Generic Zigbee Drivers with Presence and Recovery:

thanks for the response.
So I’m in an area I’ve never been before. I asked the Hubitat community and didn’t get as clear a response as I hoped.
I asked:
“I’m humbly asking about the proper and appropriate steps one should take after making changes to another persons work.
Case:
I use a driver for an outlet that is available under GNU General Public License v3.0. In my case, this driver solved a problem but introduced another. I took it upon myself to adjust the driver I was using and made changes that work great for me - including adding some small things and customizing it so it was specifically hardcoded to work with my brand of outlets using the tools the original developer has provided.
Now, the driver could help others and I feel that publishing the driver would be a good thing. My problem is I don’t want to take any credit away from the original developer (who is galaxies away from me skill wise) and I don’t want to create a situation where if something is wrong, it comes back at him.
What is proper and appropriate behavior on my part to a) release my modified version of his work so more can benefit b) be sure that all licensing is followed and upheld c) be clear on attribution?
I’m also concerned about attribution - what if the developer wants no part of it?!?!
… ” I look forward to any/all guidance on this matter… this is new territory for me. And I want to do right by the original and highly skilled developer. "

Upon reading the replies I got 'Send a PR, Be Nice, Ask, and follow common courtesy. Having read your reply in the forum thread, I understand it would be great if I was anywhere near your skill set. I’m not. that’s laughable as I’m just a hack that wants to help others. I was thinking one idea was for me to add a package that had my changes, but in my own repository so you get credit but it won’t come back at you. It’s just an idea. Anyways. I truly appreciate the time you put in, your skill, your wisdom and your desires. thanks
Jim Shimota ‘Shumo / jshimota’

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#2

Under GPL3 my understanding is that you can fork Marku’s github and make your own changes without impacting on the original code. When you do that in github it also shows the source of your code is Markus’ repository so attribution is already there.

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#3

Hi Jim!

When it comes to keeping credits and original code referenced it’s not easy to “do it right”. You could do as gadget suggests and base it off a fork of my repo, but if you’re only going to change this one driver that is probably not ideal considering my repo has a lot of other drivers as well.

With that said, it’s perfectly fine to just take the one driver file and add to the list of contributors in the header with a clear note about what you added/changed. Adding a link to the original repo in the header could also be a good thing to do.

I’m happy my drivers can still help people even though I’ve had to discontinue support for them. Always glad to hear my work comes to good use!

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#4