[Adrian Schneider]

One of the gray areas is definitely support... Here are my views if a hack becomes popular and the author can no longer handle the workload:

If the hack IS supported

The author should do one of the following:

1. Quit his job and support it to keep everyone happy.
   
2. Start charging money to give quality support to the people who need it.
   
3. Try to recruit some helpers to help support it.
4. Abandon the hack. It is too much work.

All of those are decent solutions, depending on your position. Hopefully you picked up on the sarcasm on 1.

However, under no circumstances, should a free hack become a paid hack. Support is one issue, but if the entire script becomes commercialized, it is betrayal.

I would hope that in the case of the author being overwhelmed, and peoples' boards are down due to bugs, the author would allow others to help, or the staff put some kind of warning up saying there are many known bugs and it isn't safe at this point.

Also, (hopefully a staff member can fill me in on this), if a hack is abandoned, do you go in and untick the supported field?

If the hack is NOT supported

The user downloaded it knowing (his own fault if he didn't see the supported box unticked) that it is unsupported. It is not the authors resonsibility.