As for taking over, the easiest is for him to give you commit bits to the project on PAUSE. You will then both have the ability to publish, though he would still be the first listed name in the module list. You could of course try to "set the record straight" in the POD with any updates.

So if someone feels strongly about the way a module is written, he should be allowed to take someone else's idea and implement it as his own?!  Wow ... I'm at a loss for words ...

A good friend of mine told me a story years ago, when he had some novel ideas for a product (his field was biochemistry), and was trying to start his own company, but needed to get financing for it.  The venture capital corporation which he was talking with told him they were NOT willing to finance the development of a new technology.  "However", they said, "we would be fine with having you steal the technology from another company, and we will pay to defend you in court".  Apparently, that was a much cheaper, and presumably profitable strategy.  My friend was very disappointed, but he gave up the idea because the thought of stealing someone else's ideas went against his values.

So let me ask you ... let's say you had presented one of your modules before publishing them, perhaps this or maybe this.  And Greg London heard your presentation, but felt strongly about the namespace, or other implementation details.  Or maybe he simply noticed that you hadn't yet published it on CPAN.  Would that have given him the ethical right to publish it first?

I wonder how Mr. London would feel if I started distributing this or this with my own name on it instead of his own?  (I wouldn't do that of course -- it goes against my moral standards).

---

s''(q.S:$/9=(T1';s;(..)(..);$..=substr+crypt($1,$2),2,3;eg;print$..$/

| ...
|   In Mr. London's case, you should probably think of it as a proof of concept for you, 
| rather than be so offended. I did also indicate that you could ammend the POD in the future. 
| You are conflating two separate issues, "no credit" and "reinventing the wheel."
| ...

I personally, see CPAN very similar with how the scientific comunity behaves with new published investigations. You shouldn't feel so naive in the future. You are the one that 'loves' your creation. You can make it improve if you want...

I heard the story of the creator of the silicon transistor at Science Friday a month or two ago. Even though he was recognized as the real inventor, the world remembers other two scientists.

He was, though, very paranoid and I guess that with a reason. A reporter has recently interviewed all the people that knew him, and noone accepted him as the real creator. Nobody liked him. To such a level as to psychollogically deny his invention. He was a real genius. But not even I that now know the real facts can remember him (not joking!). I heard that it was scientifically explained as an effect that is completelly the oposite to what charisma is. At the moment that he came into a room everybody started hating him for no reason :) .

But what that proved to me is to what an extension does love come to be what matters. If you developed the complete idea, it is very difficult for someone else to improve it unless he is a real empathic person. And in that case, he wouldn't do that... There is a paralell thinking involved in all the creation that nobody is able to understand. What is always possible is to grab your created object and use it for something different. But you are the father of your creation. And you are the only one 'author ized' to possibly improve it... CPAN is not bad.

• Landlords production is only eaten by landlords...

• Wherever I lay my KNOPPIX disk, a new FREE LINUX nation could be established

It's not a matter of namespace, and I did not create either of those modules, but am a maintainer. On the other hand, I did create Data::JavaScript::LiteObject in response to Data::JavaScript (of which I am now maintainer, and intend to one day merge the two), and I see no problem with that. In Mr. London's case, you should probably think of it as a proof of concept for you, rather than be so offended. I did also indicate that you could ammend the POD in the future. You are conflating two separate issues, "no credit" and "reinventing the wheel."

--
In Bob We Trust, All Others Bring Data.

So if someone feels strongly about the way a module is written, he should be allowed to take someone else's idea and implement it as his own?!

Not exactly, no; and I don't think anyone means to imply that. However, there's a subtle point that I think should not be so subtle.

Open-source thrives on people feeling strongly about the way something is done, taking its core idea, and implement it in their own way. The fact that Mr. London seems to have used your ideas to create his own implementation is not a problem, and I hope you realize that varieties of implementations like that are part of how the community works. It may not be always ideal, but it's commonly an improvement (look at the X.org fork that's replacing the slow-moving XFree86 X11 servers).

However, it is considered inappropriate in the Open-source community (and just about everywhere else) to do something like that and not credit the original ideas. It's called plagiarism when one person claims another's ideas as his own.

That said, it seems like Mr. London's intentions were honorable, as evidenced by his willingness to hand control of the module to you -- you can easily update the docs to say something like "Mr. London's implementation of the ideas in Language::Logo, which were pitched by liverpole at a Perl Monger's meeting...".

Intentions aside, though, we do have a responsibility to credit others' work -- and that includes ideas, etc. that feed that work. The reward for contributing to Open-source is credibility and recognition; it's important that we as a community pay extra-special attention to making sure credit is given when due.

<–radiant.matrix–>
Ramblings and references
The Code that can be seen is not the true Code
I haven't found a problem yet that can't be solved by a well-placed trebuchet