I mean the whole point of doing the mega rewrite to gtk3 was specifically to enable such forward looking progress.
What they did in the 3.0 release was, largely, a massive modernization of a dinosaur code base.
Now that it’s done it makes sense to do a UI overhaul. Before 3.0 it made no sense to even try, now it does.
I think you should do more then just add a disclaimer. You should add a proper license. It protects you and allows others to build upon your work in a predictable way.
That and licenses are legally battle hardened and proven. A self written disclaimer is not.
I would recommend licensing your scripts under the GPL. This lets other people use it with the understanding that if they improve it they have to let others use the improvements too.
That and it protects you like you want. Particularly section 15 and 16.
- Disclaimer of Warranty.
THERE IS NO WARRANTY FOR THE PROGRAM, TO THE EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW. EXCEPT WHEN OTHERWISE STATED IN WRITING THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND/OR OTHER PARTIES PROVIDE THE PROGRAM “AS IS” WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EITHER EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. THE ENTIRE RISK AS TO THE QUALITY AND PERFORMANCE OF THE PROGRAM IS WITH YOU. SHOULD THE PROGRAM PROVE DEFECTIVE, YOU ASSUME THE COST OF ALL NECESSARY SERVICING, REPAIR OR CORRECTION.
- Limitation of Liability.
IN NO EVENT UNLESS REQUIRED BY APPLICABLE LAW OR AGREED TO IN WRITING WILL ANY COPYRIGHT HOLDER, OR ANY OTHER PARTY WHO MODIFIES AND/OR CONVEYS THE PROGRAM AS PERMITTED ABOVE, BE LIABLE TO YOU FOR DAMAGES, INCLUDING ANY GENERAL, SPECIAL, INCIDENTAL OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES ARISING OUT OF THE USE OR INABILITY TO USE THE PROGRAM (INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO LOSS OF DATA OR DATA BEING RENDERED INACCURATE OR LOSSES SUSTAINED BY YOU OR THIRD PARTIES OR A FAILURE OF THE PROGRAM TO OPERATE WITH ANY OTHER PROGRAMS), EVEN IF SUCH HOLDER OR OTHER PARTY HAS BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES.
Alternatively you could use the MIT or BSD licenses, but they don’t have the “share alike” clause, so I tend not to recommend them.
They’re not refusing. They’re actually doing the opposite. But they needed to get their house in order first.
The 3.0 upgrade was the result of the getting their house in order and modernizing. Doing cosmetic changed before hand would have made no sense because those changes would have been thrown away when they would have to modernize things anyways.
I think I have an analogy.
Gimp was like an old American style wooden house that was flooded. After the water recedes you could try to make things look nicer by plastering and painting the walls etc. But as goes with flooded houses if you do this the mold will rot everything out.
In order to save a flooded house you need to remove all the dry wall and use fans to dry out the internals. Once things are dry then you can plaster and repaint things.
Gimp 3.0 was them ripping out dry wall and air drying the internals. Now that that is done it now makes sense to clean up the UI.
If you clean up the UI before you dry the walls out it’s just a waste of time because those improvements would need to be ripped out with the dry walls always.
It’s not perfect as far as an analogy goes but it’s close. Gimp should have never let the house flood in the first place. (Analogy breaks down here a bit). But since they did. They needed to fix the fundamental before it would be worth fixing the UI.
This all being said they could at this point genuinely refuse to change things UI wise. I hope they choose to pull a Blender or Krita but they don’t have to.