If a coder has seemingly abandoned their plugin, and I've fixed it for 4.0

[Videx]

Originally Posted by ragtek

That's not true!
If you die, you still have the copyright for 20-70 years after your dead (depents on what (music, text, etc...)

Yes, thanks primarily to the Disney Corporation and Sonny Bono. Presumably when their copyrights are due to expire next they'll find more legislators willing to push the date back even more. As if Walt Disney or anyone related to him are being harmed by expiring copyrights. Total sham.

Anyway, none of this has anything to do with software patents. Or "modification copyrights", which don't actually exist (no matter how many times some people say they do).

[TheLastSuperman]

Originally Posted by Mike Anime

why not add another feature to the script or code it in a different language.

doing that should NOT be copywrite infringment

Coders have that option when posting a mod, "Allow Translation" otherwise if they simply redo it and post well they never received permission.

Originally Posted by Videx

Yes, thanks primarily to the Disney Corporation and Sonny Bono. Presumably when their copyrights are due to expire next they'll find more legislators willing to push the date back even more. As if Walt Disney or anyone related to him are being harmed by expiring copyrights. Total sham.

Anyway, none of this has anything to do with software patents. Or "modification copyrights", which don't actually exist (no matter how many times some people say they do).

Your missing the key arguments by others here and I'm sticking with them as they have been around longer, been around here longer too and have had more time than you to encounter and handle situations like this.

You can google it, yahoo it, bing it even but long story short unless you or I are lawyers then why argue with each other. I do know the rules here and I will stick to them and if I release a work I consider valued to me enough to sue over then I will if it's ever misused or re-released without permission as I have went through the trouble of becoming an LLC, I have hired an accountant, a lawyer and the whole nine so as the old saying goes... you need to have money to make money and anyone taking away from me (in essence my family, married with three children) will be treated as a thief plain and simple, no excuses, no "I didn't know or realize" if your grown enough to register on these forums then you were grown and responsible enough to own up to the fact you should have read all the rules and other information before posting or assuming anything, terms of service and rules are there for a reason.

All of this boils down to right and wrong and giving credit where it is due, simply asking beforehand will only result in a yes or no and if you can't live with either response then don't bother to ask and don't bother to assume you can simply take what you want and run, in some countries they have been known to chop off hands and here we arguing over this.

[Mike Anime]

even though coders might not come back here for time on end for whatever reason you can click their name and choose to send them an email through the forums and as long as the email account is active they will get that email.

a rule of thumb here would be unless they say you can redo their code DON'T

[Videx]

You guys really aren't paying attention. We aren't talking about emailing a coder and asking permission; we're talking about coders that completely disappear. Dead, perhaps, or changed emails and no longer care a whit about vbulletin or mods they wrote here.

As for who's been around longer, again you've missed out on reality. Perhaps someone on the vb.org staff has been around computers and copyright law as long as I have, but how can you tell?

[Zachery]

You guys really aren't paying attention. We aren't talking about emailing a coder and asking permission; we're talking about coders that completely disappear. Dead, perhaps, or changed emails and no longer care a whit about vbulletin or mods they wrote here.

Its their code, doesn't matter if they're dead or abandoned the site, its their code. Without their permission you cannot relrelease their workd, period, end of story.

[War.Frog]

Really? Sorry, too easy. vb.org has one of two choices here:

1. throw its hands up in the air and say "oh well too bad so sad"
2. get proactive and community-focused and address something that is obviously a serious issue here

The issue of copyright and code stealing is a red herring and makes for a way-too-convenient dismissal of the problem. I quite frankly respect a coder's right to his/her own intellectual property and vb.org can't possibly be expected to muck around in that quagmire. So THAT I agree with.

However, there are things that can be done to benefit the entire community here. Without even breaking a sweat here are just some of many ideas that could be considered:

• establish expiries on "Supported" tags
• a scoring model that publicly rewards active coders (why shouldn't they get recognized?)
• this scoring should appeal-able (similar to eBay model)
• automatic stale-mod indicator (after x-days coder not active)
• automatic notification to mod authors when their mods go stale
• indicator when creating mod that allows author to check "please mark as free-to-use if I stop supporting"
• automatic change of "Developer" image and text tag to "Developer - Inactive"

Come on, I'm sure there are ten billion other things that the community could come up with to help discourage the walkaways we see here all too often. Simply dismissing the issue with the wave of the hand demonstrates a shocking lack of vision and community mindedness.

[Zachery]

If you want to make suggestions I would advise posting in the suggestions forums.

But to your point, what does it matter of the developer is inactive but the addon is good? For Myself and my friend we do releases under a single name, we rarely login to the account unless to release/update a mod.
Why should a mod go stale just because the author isn't around, does it mean the modification isn't usable? You're only going to confuse things. Some addons are timeless and live though upgrades (rpg stats for one...).
Authors can release the code under more or less any copyright (not GPL, its just wont work with the vB license agreement) and release it here.

[New Joe]

All i can say is that it is great that some people are helping to get some of the old mods working for vB4 and are willing to share what work they've done.
Wouldn't it be ok just to add to the actual Mod that this works for vB4 and attach the files to the post in the Mod Thread.
I always read the Threads no matter which version they are for just in case someone has added anything to get it working for the version I'm using.

[Fungsten]

Originally Posted by New Joe

Wouldn't it be ok just to add to the actual Mod that this works for vB4 and attach the files to the post in the Mod Thread.
I always read the Threads no matter which version they are for just in case someone has added anything to get it working for the version I'm using.

I agree. Would that be a solution?

[Lynne]

You may not go and attach a new version of the product into the thread. And most 'fixes' that are posted in threads a little two-liner bits of code that need fixing. The rules state you may not post more than 10 lines of copyrighted code.

Some coders don't even like fixes posted in their threads. I know I have tried to always send a PM to the developer asking if they mind if I post a bit of code to fix or change something. Some of them like to 'approve' fixes first.

You need to watch how you treat developers. Other developers will notice how respectful we are towards them and may choose to not deal with it and not release their stuff to the public if they don't like the attitude. A gimme attitude will not win any points.