Releasing a continuation of an inactive addon to BukkitDev?

Discussion in 'BukkitDev Information and Feedback' started by Wolvereness, Oct 11, 2011.

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    Wolvereness Bukkit Team Member

    So, I've been working on an updated version of PhysicalShop. Now that bukkit is moving to CurseForge / BukkitDev, what is the exact policy that would pertain to my situation (and I'm sure, quite a few other plugin writters).

    I dug up two resources for Project Acceptance Policy and Abandoned and Inactive Projects.
    Technically I'm not the original author, the previous author hasn't been marked inactive as per CurseForge policy (he doesn't even have an associated account?), and there was no explicit liscense; am I able to use BukkitDev at all for this plugin?
     
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    lukegb

    I would suggest that you attempt to message the original author on the forums. If they do not respond within a reasonable length of time, feel free to take the project to BukkitDev, but note that if the original developer returns and does not wish you to use the name of the plugin, you may have to change. I trust, however, you would be able to have a mature discussion with the original developer were he to return.


    tl;dr PM them here, wait a week, post on BukkitDev.
     
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    Don Redhorse

    perhaps you could put that into the corresponding stickies... I had the same question... especially because some developers are still "active" = reading the forums, but not replying to messages in their own threads or PM's.

    Also perhaps you should think about removing developer status from some of the developers who don't have any active plugins anymore..
     
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    Wolvereness Bukkit Team Member

    Thank you for the quick response.

    I sent a PM and got a positive response from the author. :D
     
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    Drakia

    No license doesn't mean you're free to do what you want with the code, quite the opposite actually. If there's no license, legally you aren't allowed to use the code for your own project (Event if it's a continuation) without the original authors consent.
     
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    lukegb

    This looks like it's getting dangerously close to a license discussion, so I would like to warn those reading this thread not to get bogged down about this.

    In addition, this is a modding community. Arguably a large part of what we do would fall outside of this law, particularly when we began. Notch tweeting that he's vaguely-sortof-okay with modding isn't exactly 'permission' to do it - and we didn't even have that when we started.

    As I said, I would expect anyone reviving a 'dead' project to have a reasonable discussion with the original author if they were to return, and to have made a reasonable effort to contact the original author before undertaking a fork.
     
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