Adopting an orphan plugin

For a variety of reasons, plugins sometimes get abandoned by their creators. It could be that the original author has retired, moved on to other work, or sometimes even passed away.

Community members with development and debugging skills are urged to consider picking up support for plugins that have been abandoned.

Creating a Github repo for your contribution is nice but not required. The advantage of doing this is that other people can submit PRs to fix bugs and enhance the operation of your plugin.

Do’s and Don’ts

• Do not remove anyone else’s copyright or authorship claims. You are welcome to add yourself, but don’t take anything away.
• Do not claim original authorship if you aren’t the original author. Make it clear that you’re building on someone else’s work.
• Make an effort to reach out to the original author to be sure the work has been abandoned. It could be that the author just doesn’t think more work is needed.
• Familiarize yourself with the rules for plugins.
• Follow the migration guides to bring the plugin up to the current level of PHP.
• Whereever possible, try to use the Observer/Notifier system, rather than changing core files. See the other tips for plugin authors as well.
• When you have completed your work, submit the update as a new version to the Plugin Library.