I would love to suggest that all function listed should be renamed to a new unique name so that it wont clash with other script function. A simple prefix should be fine.
Also please refer to my post here: http://network-13.com/thread/1823-1-Include-not-working#1863
When is the possibilities that new version will be released? I have to use CuteNews for a moment until the new version is out else I cant include it on my templates.
Also include var to path so that we can set it during installation. Path to function as well as config is really important so that it can be embedded almost anywhere.