vBulletin.org is a private entity. They could make it a condition of posting a mod here that if "abandoned" you, the mod author, gives consent for another coder to take over the mod. Since the mod can't be commercial to be posted here anyway no money is lost by anyone, but the community benefits.

You yourself worked on the My Smilies mod which went from coder to coder to coder and will probably go to another one for 4.x... This is all well and good that you or someone before you was able to contact the original coder to get permission- this isn't always possible and not always practical either... people move on, people even die... I wouldn't want my mods to sit unupdated if they could otherwise be so if I died unexpectedly.

We can make all the rules we want, it wont change laws.

Just so its clear as well - even if we could write our own laws, we still wouldnt, since it would drive most coders away. I, for one, would not post a single mod here under such rules - just because I do not charge for my mods does not mean I would give up my rights to them.

In this case contacting the original author wasn't necessary, it was marked as "Re-usable Code"

I'm sure many coders would have a problem with it, though personally I wouldn't, but that wasn't the argument I was making. You need not change any laws- websites have a terms of service, you agree to them at registation and by continued use of a website your consent to their terms are implied.

vBulletin.org could say that all releases on vBulletin.org fall under a vB Org License which grants x, y, z rights to the coder, and a, b, c rights to the community, including that mods not updated for 2 years or whom authors have not logged in for 2 years are automatically given "reusable code" status. If you want to post a mod here you agree to this- plain and simple and completely legal- this is not debatable.

What is debatable is if it's a good idea... I can see both sides to this though personally I'd be for it- if a coder is really upset about losing exclusive rights to a long abandoned mod then good riddance I say.

Yes we could include something like that in our TOS, be we will not.

It would drive part of the current coders away and we would have less new submissions. That is also not in the benefit of the community.