Update a hack and distribute it without permission ?
 

Hi,

I've seen that some of my hacks (under Vbdev username) were modified and updated to work for vb 3.5 without my permission and the hacker hasn't asked yet to know if I want of it !

Is he right having done this ? Is it allowed ?

I wanted to update this hack by myself, what do I do ? I don't ?

Thanks for replies ;) (and sorry for my english :nervous: )

Have you tried PM'ing them to find out why you were never contacted? I would start there and see what happens and we can go from there. ;)

I shouldn't think that it is allowed to port a hack without permission of the original author.

I don't know what can be done about it though. If the staff remove it from the site then there are still going to be people using it on their sites.

It is NOT allowed and if we find out that is has happened, it will be dealt with accordingly.

Boofo, the problem is that these (this ?! I'm only sure for one of my hack ;) ) hacks were created by me (grog6) but posted with the username Vbdev (when we had the site vbulletindev.net

It doesn't make a difference. If it is your hack and it was knowingly converted without your permission, then it is wrong. ;)

PM me with the details and I will check it out.

Depends really if the same code has just been rewritten and updated, or if the idea has simply come around again and the code is completely different. It could be a genuine mistake, and the coder simply didn't know that you had written something similar for vBulletin 3.0.x.

Personally, I generally don't believe in coders owning an idea. They do however own the code written for that idea.. However, credit should still be given where it is due.

Have to agree with andy, to a certain extent.

Are you 1000% positive that they really took your work and ported it? or did they write new code, to accompish the same goal and found that you had also made a hack.

It seems more likely a new hack was created that fulfills the older hack's purpose.

While I agree with the idea of a coder not owning an idea, I think that the phrase "ignorance is not an excuse" should be effective...

People who code modifications are obviously of a technical skill allowing them to use the tremendously powerful yet forgotten forum feature: THE ABILITY TO SEARCH

Anyone who has the time to code something surely has the time to make a common courtesy to search a few key phrases about their proposed/coded idea and see if a hack exists for vB2 or vB3 before coding/releasing it for vB3.5...

If the code is generally different or the hacker didn't know, up until this point it has been taken as "fair enough they didn't know"...

As a matter of common courtesy to the original hack author they should at least inform them they have released such a hack and that they seek endorsement for re-releasing/coding the modification for the latest version...

Chris