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My friends. I want to know if I can create a repository of abandoned plugin of wp.org that the author is not mantaining make 2 years.

The plugin is this:

https://br.wordpress.org/plugins/send-emails-for-woocommerce/

I just want to know if I will have problem with the law if I put it in the Github because is a third party plugin, even if I mantain the author in the readme.txt. Thanks!

Edit: https://wordpress.org/support/topic/can-i-takeover-this-plugin-it-seems-to-be-abandoned-after-2-years-w-o-update/

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I‘m not a lawyer but a plugin developer. As far as I know you ca republish any GPL code. The only thing you should do first is

  • try to reach the author in the forum
  • have a look at the plugin files, maybe there’s an email address where you can try to reach out to the author

If both doesn’t work just fork it. This is the recommended process to take over a plugin if it seems to be abandoned.

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  • Thanks for the advices, my friend. I will try to contact him but I think he really abandoned the plugin, it's 2 years without update. Well, I just want to expand the use of plugin. If the owner doesn't care anymore. I do. Remember that WordPress is a project that started of the abandoned b2cafelog project.
    – Lucas Vendramini
    Commented Jun 10, 2019 at 18:49
  • @LucasVendramini if you can’t reach the author and update the plugin to make it work with current versions you can ask the plugin team to take over the plugin and share your updates with the community.
    – Hannes
    Commented Jun 10, 2019 at 18:57
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Yes as long as you don't violate the original license, all plugins on .org are GPL or GPL compatible, so your fork must be too.

Keep in mind though that for legal matters, you should consult professional legal advice rather than stack exchange

For reference:

  • Plugins must be compatible with the GNU General Public License v2 or later. If a license is not specified, code will be considered “GPLv2 or later.”

Taken from https://developer.wordpress.org/plugins/wordpress-org/

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  • I guess I will not violate the license if I don't sell the plugin itself. If I keep the code open in Github I'm fine. I will only use it in my theme (my theme is a paid solution).
    – Lucas Vendramini
    Commented Jun 10, 2019 at 18:45
  • "all plugins on .org are GPL or GPL compatible" -> Not doubting that, but do you have a source? I can't find it, myself.
    – Maximillian Laumeister
    Commented Jun 10, 2019 at 20:15
  • It's a requirement for hosting a plugin on .org, but a non-GPL compatible plugin/theme would violate the license of WordPress. While there are some who dispute that interpretation of the GPL, it hasn't been settled in court. Eitherway ignoring the legal side of things, selling non-GPL code in the WordPress space is likely to make you a pariah of sorts
    – Tom J Nowell ♦
    Commented Jun 10, 2019 at 21:23
  • @MaximillianLaumeister, the source is the downloaded plugin, I would put it in the github and continue from there...
    – Lucas Vendramini
    Commented Jun 11, 2019 at 12:04
  • @TomJNowell Found the source developer.wordpress.org/plugins/wordpress-org/…
    – Maximillian Laumeister
    Commented Jun 11, 2019 at 15:21

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