[wp-hackers] Discontinuing a plugin on WordPress.org

Fri Aug 8 15:16:11 UTC 2014

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## Chris replied, on Aug 8 @ 11:15am (AMT):

the issue is that there are a lot, probably thousands of users running
that plugin and by pushing an update that nulls it those site owners
are losing real money in a very big way. If they didn't want to
support it use the adopt me tag or something. The problem with
removing it from the listings IMO is that those users who we're
running it live need to have a way of getting the previous version
zip, and for most users the easiest way (other than reverting the
update) would e to grab the last version zip off the dev tab on the
listing.
--
Chris Christoff
hello at chriscct7.com
http://www.chriscct7.com [1]
@chriscct7
If you feel the need to donate, as a college student, I appreciate
donations of any amount. The easiest way to donate to my college fund
is via the donation button at the bottom of my
homepage: http://chriscct7.com/ [2]

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## wp-hackers at lists.automattic.com replied, on Aug 8 @ 11:01am (AMT):

Among the reasons we don’t keep an official list of ‘plugins ready
for adoption’ is that the plugin team doesn’t have the time, and
any attempt to use a wiki would be easy to mess up by people listing
plugins that are not ready to be taken over.

 I say this a lot. If YOU have a plugin you want to stop working on,
push an update that makes it clear on the plugin settings page, the
plugin listing on the plugins.php page, AND in your readme for the
wporg repo. Tell people “I’m not working on this anymore.” and
if you’re inclined, give them a way to contact you to take it over.

 Because y’know :) We’re cool with that!

 Also remember we generally aren’t going to hand over your plugin to
random people.

 https://make.wordpress.org/plugins/2014/02/06/clarification-on-taking-over-plugins/
[1]

 So keep your email address on WPORG valid and up to date, and do
please whitelist plugins AT wordpress.org :D

 --
 Mika A Epstein (aka Ipstenu)
 http://ipstenu.org [2] | http://halfelf.org [3]

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## wp-hackers at lists.automattic.com replied, on Aug 8 @ 8:57am (AMT):

That makes sense.

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## wp-hackers at lists.automattic.com replied, on Aug 8 @ 8:56am (AMT):

Well, it is their plugin. If they don't want to support it or have
people
 download it anymore, then I have no real problem with that. So
removing the
 listing is the best way to do that, as I see it. I don't think we
should
 revert it and force it to be available if they don't want it
available
 anymore.

 If somebody wants to remove their own plugin from the listings, then
we can
 do that. Simply nulling it out and putting "moved" on it is a bad
idea, but
 just getting rid of the URL entirely is fine with me.

 -Otto

 wrote:

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## wp-hackers at lists.automattic.com replied, on Aug 8 @ 8:51am (AMT):

I'm aware that I can download the previous versions of the plugin(well
most
 users are probably not though), but the thing is that you shouldn't
have to
 do that.

 Otto - I guess it's probably more headaches than it's worth, but what
about
 reverting the last commit(or just moving the code back to /trunk or
the
 stable tag) and changing the readme to state that the plugin is no
longer
 going to be supported.
 You then revoke access to the plugin's repository(so that the authors
can
 no longer do the same thing).

 Ultimately I think that if there's a list of plugins that are no
longer
 supported by their authors and are put up "for adoption" by other
 developers everyone could benefit(not sure if that's fair/possible?).
Yes,
 you can just fork the plugin and upload it as a new one, but the
users of
 the old plugin probably won't be aware that there's a new version of
the
 plugin.

 Anyway, just some thoughts.

 > Yes, that is a terrible way to discontinue a plugin, but people
do it
 > anyway. When we find them, we close them so that listing is
removed.
 >
 >
 > -Otto
 >
 >
 >
 > > Hi everyone,
 > >
 > > I was working with a client that was using the Fundify
WordPress theme,
 > > which was powered by a combination of Fundify
Crowdfunding(
 > > https://wordpress.org/plugins/appthemer-crowdfunding/ [1]
) and EDD.
 > >
 > > I wanted to download the source of the plugin to my
computer to easily
 > > navigate through the codebase. On the plugin page they've
added "(Moved)"
 > > to the name of the plugin.
 > > Once I extracted the archive, there was nothing but an
empty .php file
 > and
 > > a readme.txt file.
 > >
 > > My question in this case is - is this allowed and isn't
that a terrible
 > way
 > > of discontinuing a plugin? What if someone updates the
plugin and their
 > > site stops working? Or someone installs the plugin and
nothing happens...
 > >
 > > Is there anything the WordPress.org plugins team can do
about it?
 > >
 > > Best regards,
 > > Nikola
 > > _______________________________________________
 > > wp-hackers mailing list
 > > wp-hackers at lists.automattic.com [2]
 > > http://lists.automattic.com/mailman/listinfo/wp-hackers
[3]
 > >
 > _______________________________________________
 > wp-hackers mailing list
 > wp-hackers at lists.automattic.com [4]
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 >
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 wp-hackers at lists.automattic.com [6]
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## wp-hackers at lists.automattic.com replied, on Aug 8 @ 8:24am (AMT):

Yes, that is a terrible way to discontinue a plugin, but people do it
 anyway. When we find them, we close them so that listing is removed.

 -Otto

 wrote:

 > Hi everyone,
 >
 > I was working with a client that was using the Fundify
WordPress theme,
 > which was powered by a combination of Fundify Crowdfunding(
 > https://wordpress.org/plugins/appthemer-crowdfunding/ [1] ) and
EDD.
 >
 > I wanted to download the source of the plugin to my computer to
easily
 > navigate through the codebase. On the plugin page they've added
"(Moved)"
 > to the name of the plugin.
 > Once I extracted the archive, there was nothing but an empty
.php file and
 > a readme.txt file.
 >
 > My question in this case is - is this allowed and isn't that a
terrible way
 > of discontinuing a plugin? What if someone updates the plugin
and their
 > site stops working? Or someone installs the plugin and nothing
happens...
 >
 > Is there anything the WordPress.org plugins team can do about
it?
 >
 > Best regards,
 > Nikola
 > _______________________________________________
 > wp-hackers mailing list
 > wp-hackers at lists.automattic.com [2]
 > http://lists.automattic.com/mailman/listinfo/wp-hackers [3]
 >
 _______________________________________________
 wp-hackers mailing list
 wp-hackers at lists.automattic.com [4]
 http://lists.automattic.com/mailman/listinfo/wp-hackers [5]

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