Originally Posted by Phanx
The main issue with that is how to determine exactly when the project is "officially" dropped. Should everyone and their brother upload a "fan update" if the author doesn't updated within 30 seconds of a patch going live? (Based on the number of "duzint wurk updaet plz zomg broekn y abanndin omggggg ima dieeeeee" tickets I get on my addons if I don't have an update out before the patch is done downloading, some people would define it that way.) How about when they don't update for a patch, but the addon works just fine when "Load out of date addons" is checked? When the last patch introduced a minor issue but the addon still mostly works as long as you don't use Feature X? When it's been 3 years and the addon has been completely unusable for 6 months?
I'm sure there are also people who would think it was time to "take up the torch" if the author declined to add a feature they requested, or if a bug report went a month without being addressed. Certainly many users seem to think it's the end of the world when these things happen.  |
There is no grace period. It's as simple as, "can I" or "can't I" when it comes to releasing someones work.
There's no, well, it's been six months so I can just take his code now. There's no, he denied my feature request, I'm taking his code and making the change and releasing it if his license forbids it.