Long story short: I tried asking, was denied, we got talking, we got friendly, we helped each other out, I asked again, he said nothing likely assuming he didn't have to, I assumed he got around and was okay with it now since we got on pretty good, I kept updating him on the progress, I release it a few weeks later, he gets his panties in a bunch when he notices and says I 'stole' the work ( despite there being multiple instances of him being credited in the first post at the time ) and kicks up a shit storm. I try to talk it over with him but he's pretty mad and won't give me permission to keep the changes. Oh yeah, all over the place: bad english got massively in the way. And that wasn't me whose english was bad.
So I take the changes somewhere else that isn't qhimm.