“Hijacking” WordPress plugins

How do you guys feel about “Hijacking” WordPress plugins if the original composers have completely abandoned the project?

I guess it depends on the scenario, from most severe to least below:

  1. Stealing the project while its active and marketing it as yours.
  2. Stealing the project while it’s abandoned and marketing it as yours.
  3. Copying the project while it’s abandoned and reviving it clearly giving credit to the original composer (with his/her permission hopefully!).
  4. Copying the project while it’s abandoned, renaming it to prevent update notifications and continuing developing it as your own project without releasing it.

I’m thinking of doing #4 as I’m getting fairly fed up with plugin owners not implementing filters or actions that can be used to extend/modify the functionality of the plugin.

This entry was posted in Wordpress and tagged , , . Bookmark the permalink.