[wp-hackers] giving original plugin author credit when altering code

[Scott Plumlee]

Doug Stewart wrote:
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> Scott Plumlee wrote:
>> Is there a de facto/approved/agreed upon/'hey, that works!' method for
>> giving an original plugin author credit when extending his/her plugin?
>>
>> I've got a couple of plugins that I love to use, but I sometimes make a
>> couple of changes to them to tweak them exactly as I want.  I don't know
>> if I should create a new plugin based off the original and give credit
>> somehow, or just patch the plugin whenever a new version from the
>> original author comes out.
>>
>> Any preferences from plugin authors on the list? I've read this:
>> http://codex.wordpress.org/Writing_a_Plugin#Plugin_File_Structure, so
>> I'm wondering if adding some sort of 'Original Plugin Name' line to give
>> the correct credit.
>>
> 
> A lot depends upon the license that people choose. If the original is
> GPL'd, you do have to keep the original licensing terms and conditions
> intact before redistributing the plugin.
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> Doug Stewart

Understood.  With all the various licenses out there, I wonder if I 
would just be better off contacting the specific authors and asking how 
they would prefer it be handled on a case by case basis.  I could 
probably spend hours trying to unravel exactly what each license allows.

In the case where the author does not mind if I modify their code, I'd 
still like to give credit to them as the original author somehow.