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

Fri Aug 8 15:24:01 UTC 2014

-- Please reply above this line --

-----------------------------------------------------------
## Chris replied, on Aug 8 @ 11:23am (AMT):

It depends on the plugin. Given the one in question was used by a lot
of people and is a mandatory plugin for several themes not written by
that developer there would probably be a very high chance this one
would be adopted if allowed
--
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]

Links:
------
[1] http://www.chriscct7.com
[2] http://chriscct7.com/

-----------------------------------------------------------
## wp-hackers at lists.automattic.com replied, on Aug 8 @ 11:19am (AMT):

wrote:

 > 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.
 >

 LOL. Honestly, every time the issue of adoption comes up for plugins,
I
 can't help but laugh a bit. :)

 Plugin adoption is not a real issue, because there is nobody out
there
 actually wanting to adopt other people's code.

 Seriously, nobody wants to do it. People keep asking why there is no
 "for-adoption" list, and the answer is simply because it is not
necessary.
 There's no shortage of abandoned plugins, but there's a serious
shortage of
 caring wanna-be-parents for those plugins.

 I can think of maybe 10 times that a plugin has been adopted. Total.
Ever.
 It just doesn't come up that often. The whole thing is a total
non-issue
 because the truth of the matter is that no coder really wants to take
over
 somebody else's code. It's a lot more fun to write your own code
instead.
 And when you're doing things for free, "fun" is your primary purpose.

 If anybody wants to adopt a plugin and cannot get in touch with the
author,
 you can email the plugins team and they will facilitate the process
or make
 contact or whatever. But this virtually never happens. There's no
need for
 a list because it's not like we're swamped with requests or anything.

 -Otto
 _______________________________________________
 wp-hackers mailing list
 wp-hackers at lists.automattic.com [1]
 http://lists.automattic.com/mailman/listinfo/wp-hackers [2]

Links:
------
[1] mailto:wp-hackers at lists.automattic.com
[2] http://lists.automattic.com/mailman/listinfo/wp-hackers

-----------------------------------------------------------
## 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]

Links:
------
[1] http://www.chriscct7.com
[2] http://chriscct7.com/

-----------------------------------------------------------
## 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]

 _______________________________________________
 wp-hackers mailing list
 wp-hackers at lists.automattic.com [4]
 http://lists.automattic.com/mailman/listinfo/wp-hackers [5]

Links:
------
[1]
https://make.wordpress.org/plugins/2014/02/06/clarification-on-taking-over-plugins/
[2] http://ipstenu.org
[3] http://halfelf.org
[4] mailto:wp-hackers at lists.automattic.com
[5] http://lists.automattic.com/mailman/listinfo/wp-hackers

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

That makes sense.

 _______________________________________________
 wp-hackers mailing list
 wp-hackers at lists.automattic.com [1]
 http://lists.automattic.com/mailman/listinfo/wp-hackers [2]

Links:
------
[1] mailto:wp-hackers at lists.automattic.com
[2] http://lists.automattic.com/mailman/listinfo/wp-hackers

-----------------------------------------------------------
## 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:

 _______________________________________________
 wp-hackers mailing list
 wp-hackers at lists.automattic.com [1]
 http://lists.automattic.com/mailman/listinfo/wp-hackers [2]

Links:
------
[1] mailto:wp-hackers at lists.automattic.com
[2] http://lists.automattic.com/mailman/listinfo/wp-hackers

-----------------------------------------------------------