Every country on the planet recognizes that people die and when they do we give away their stuff to others. But not here! If you publish a single line of code, say "Hello World!" on vb.org, you then own it for eternity. Absurd, but apparently just never actually thought through by anyone except really paranoid coders (that were still alive).

Well, that's one of the sillier responses lately.

Just because a person has not logged into vB.org for some period of time does not mean that they relinquish their rights to anything that they may have created. For all you know they may have moved support to a different site. Or they are temporarily offline. Heck, who knows, maybe are a member of the military and just got shipped out (there are a good number of military folks in the vB community).

If the vB.org admin's suddenly decide to open up the flood gates by allowing anybody to claim code from other people simply because the original coder has not logged in for some pulled-out-of-the-air amount of time, I would be willing to bet there would be an even further exodus of coders releasing add-ons here.

Now, with that said, here's a question for for vB.org staff guys/gals....

I thought I read somewhere over the years that people who want to share their revisions to an older release can do so by just posting the attachment in the original release thread (as opposed to creating a new thread & essentially assuming ownership of the code)? That way situations like this are avoidable.

This is the way the world works. If I were to write a book, it would be mine. I would own the copyright. If I'm still alive, I may give, sell, or remove the copyright as my free will. When I die, there is a method to obtaining the copyright (don't ask me legality), but it may be given freely to someone. We preserve copyright here at vBulletin.org, because frankly, it's the legal and ethical thing to do.

But this isnt a book. Its a code that is not being updated. Its like someone builds a bridge across a river, but after the river gets wider due to global warming, no one wants to extend the bridge because the architect is dead. And no one knows how to build a new bridge. But we cant extend it even though he's dead or unreachable.

Also, isnt the quote feature copyright infringement? lol

--------------- Added [DATE]1269711271[/DATE] at [TIME]1269711271[/TIME] ---------------

(FYI) if its the rule, then its the rule, just posting for discussion purposes, no one take it the wrong way)

Previously, people posted the changed in the original thread (similiar to how some mods here say change "this code here" in the default vbfile.php with "this other code here")

If however the mod is marked off with the reusable code, then the owner already gave permission for others to use their work.

Even the bridge is a bad analogy, because the bridge doesn't gain copyright to the architect. If you have the knowledge to fix it, fix it for yourself, and if it is minor, leave instructions in the original thread. Reposting a whole modification with minor changes constitutes copyright infringement.

note that I'm fine with not posting it, but I feel bad for all the people out there who can use it...

however, isn't it even recognized in US Copyright Law that after you change a certain percentage, it becomes a different enough product to not fall under the copyright of the previous work anymore? Just food for thought... I think that if I have theoretically changed 75% of the code to make it work in vb4, but still wanted to post it under the same name for recognition, I should be able to.

Note that I'm not claiming I've changed that much... more like 20% and 50% for the two mods I've updated. But I just wanted to throw that in there for the debate :)

Doesn't copyright have to be explicitly stated? Like it is at the bottom of this page?

Can you start anew with the coding?

I have two questions.

What if the coding is very close to being the same without looking at the original?
What if the coder is dead? (I am saying this in respects to the one spam mod that is amazing, but unfortunately we lost that coder to a tragic accident.)

I am no coder, but just curious.