Historical record: attribution request for Sally-derived work in Samandarin

[0xeb]

I am opening this issue in Sally as a historical record of an attribution request I filed against Samandarin:

KRtkovo-eu-AI#408

I am 0xeb, the author/maintainer of Sally:

https://github.com/0xeb/sally

Sally is itself a fork of Open Salamander, and I support forks, reuse, and people building on open source. That is not the issue here. The issue is that Samandarin appears to include work copied or adapted from Sally without clear project-level attribution to Sally or to me as 0xeb.

I filed the Samandarin issue on 2026-07-05 UTC asking for this to be resolved cleanly and constructively.

Why I am keeping this record

This is not meant as a personal attack. I want a durable public record in the Sally repository explaining what I found, what I asked for, and why this matters.

Open source work takes real time, care, testing, and maintenance. When that work is reused elsewhere without visible attribution, it is discouraging and makes it harder to justify continuing to publish that work openly.

I am asking for attribution, not for Samandarin to stop existing.

Main concern

Samandarin appears to contain Sally-derived Unicode and localization work.

Examples observed in Samandarin include:

• src/common/unicode/ViewerBomText.cpp
• src/common/unicode/ViewerBomText.h

Those files contained Sally provenance markers such as:

SPDX-FileCopyrightText: 2026 Sally Authors

They also used the Sally::Unicode namespace.

There are also Samandarin commits and comments that explicitly refer to Sally-style or Sally-aligned behavior.

Historical commit anchors

These links are included as historical anchors for the record.

Sally commits:

• Sally Unicode BOM viewer work:
  101c3fb

• Sally localization and all-architecture language pack work:
  93fa41e

Samandarin commits:

• Unicode BOM detection and decoded text support:
  KRtkovo-eu-AI@3d70747

• Samandarin localization runbook and tooling:
  KRtkovo-eu-AI@0a02363

• Restore Sally-style localization runtime:
  KRtkovo-eu-AI@25ec63d

• Align filename Unicode handling with Sally:
  KRtkovo-eu-AI@a3c3950

• Expand Sally Unicode handling across UI:
  KRtkovo-eu-AI@da99db2

Related Samandarin Unicode / long-path work for context:

• KRtkovo-eu-AI@2510b04
• KRtkovo-eu-AI@0643ffe
• KRtkovo-eu-AI@e143932
• KRtkovo-eu-AI@303fdf3

The 32,767 / 32768 path limit is a Windows long-path fact by itself, so I am not treating that number alone as proof of copying. The concern is the broader surrounding pattern: direct Sally provenance markers, Sally namespaces, Sally-referencing commit messages/comments, and substantial overlap in Unicode viewer and localization tooling work.

What I asked Samandarin to do

In the external issue, I asked Samandarin to:

1. Add visible attribution to Sally and 0xeb in the README or project documentation.
2. Link to the Sally repository: https://github.com/0xeb/sally
3. Preserve existing Sally copyright/provenance notices in files derived from Sally.
4. Add source-level comments or documentation where substantial code was copied or adapted from Sally.
5. Clarify any disputed parts with commits/files if they believe something was independently implemented.

I also asked that provenance markers not simply be removed or renamed away. Renaming files or namespaces for integration is fine, but attribution should remain clear.

Desired outcome

The desired outcome is simple:

Samandarin should acknowledge Sally clearly and preserve provenance where Sally work was copied or adapted.

I would like this resolved cleanly, without drama, and with proper credit.

[KRtekTM]

Hi 0xeb,

thank you for raising this directly and constructively.

I agree that Sally should be visibly acknowledged where Samandarin uses, adapts, or is substantially inspired by Sally work. I will add project-level attribution to the README/documentation, link to Sally, and preserve existing Sally copyright/provenance notices in files that were directly taken from or derived from Sally. Where there are substantial Sally-derived adaptations, I will also try to make the provenance clearer at the source/documentation level.

One important clarification: the long-term relationship between Samandarin and Sally is not a simple 1:1 merge. I do see convergence between the forks as a longer-term initiative, because both projects bring somewhat different features, implementation approaches, and value. In Samandarin, a lot of the work is implemented through an AI-assisted / vibe-coding workflow using OpenAI Codex. For specific tasks, I often give Codex instructions such as “look at how Sally solves this”, “use Sally as inspiration”, “compare this with documentation”, or “combine this with other sources/approaches”. The resulting implementation is then integrated, tested, adjusted, and debugged in Samandarin.

Because of that workflow, I cannot honestly make a blanket statement that every overlapping behavior is a direct 1:1 copy of Sally code. Some parts may indeed be directly derived from Sally and should be attributed as such. Other parts may be adapted, reworked, combined with other references, or independently tuned during testing. For example, the Unicode-related work in Samandarin is not necessarily identical in behavior to Sally; there are visible differences in areas such as Unicode handling details and alphabetical sorting behavior. Unicode support is originally based on the prototype work I made 10 months ago OpenSalamander#173 therefore it's not "just a copy of Sally code" as I put a heavy effort into this feature too.

That said, I do not want this distinction to be used as a way to erase credit. If Sally was used as a source, implementation reference, or substantial inspiration, I am fine with acknowledging that. If a file contains code directly taken from Sally, the Sally copyright/provenance notices should remain. If namespaces or file names are renamed later for integration reasons, the attribution should remain clear rather than being renamed away.

So my intended resolution is:

1. Add visible attribution to Sally and 0xeb in the Samandarin README or project documentation.
2. Link to the Sally repository.
3. Preserve Sally copyright/SPDX/provenance notices in files directly derived from Sally.
4. Add comments or documentation where substantial code or tooling was copied or adapted from Sally.
5. Review the specific files/commits you mentioned and clarify, where needed, whether the work is direct derivation, adaptation, or a separately integrated implementation inspired by multiple sources.

I appreciate the work you have put into Sally, and I do not want Samandarin to benefit from that work without proper acknowledgement. I would prefer to resolve this cleanly and keep the door open for future cooperation or convergence between the forks.