People taking/remove credit from hacks.. your thoughts?

[magnus]

I'm curious as to what the rest of the community thinks about this, as it seems to be fairly common and I haven't seen anything come of it.

What do you think of forums that implement hacks and remove all credit towards the author, whether it be a footer note or link. Or, in some cases, people who change the author name to that of their own. I've found more and more recent sites have done this with a number of hacks, although I have to admit, I was only searching for those using my hacks.

I've run across a number of boards running vBGarage. In it's default form, there's a footer note in a template which reads, "Powered by: vBGarage by magnus". For the most part, people seem to leave it be. Some change the name from vBGarage to something more suitable for their forum -- which is fine. Others remove the "by magnus" and simply leave "Powered by: vBGarage" -- which again, is acceptable. Others, remove the line altogether (which in some cases, I've granted permission to do).

Recently I've stumbled on a few sites that have completely changed the name, as well as added lines like "coded by ELiTeHacKerADMiN" or random lameness like it.

Why go through the extra step of claiming credit for the work? Why not just remove the line altogether and leave it at that? I guess the thought process boggles me.

What are your thoughts on this? If you're an author who has run into this, what did you do? Did you let it go? I'm curious to know. As it sits, I haven't bothered to "do" anything about it.. I just ignore it, and chuckle to myself. I mean, what really can I do? Nothing, if you think about it.

Ah well. :lick: