First i do this because i am a nice guy and i still care about the users here.  Its not easy for me to just walk away after so long.

The reason things changed after i took over is because i worked hard to finally get an answer to the question that everyone was asking.  Up until that time everyone had hope that someday the owner would start developing it again.  I firmly requested an answer from the owner on behalf of the users here.  He ask for a few days to decide and that was months ago and has never replied to me since.  So to me that is writing on the wall that its over.  So i let everyone know what happened and they too arrived at the same conclusion. Even the partners and clubs closed down. 

Things changed because i was able to find out for sure about development.  Maybe i should have just let everyone keep wishing, but thats not fair to anyone. 

The reason they did not do it themselves is because the owner is busy doing other things, and oxgermany retired.  So basically by the time i got to be moderator the ship was already mostly sunk in deep water.  Right now i am just a babysitter, i was told that i was not required to spend any time here but again that is not fair to any of you.. So i still do it.

Believe me when i say that there have been many times that i felt like just walking away and letting it go to dust.  But i could not look myself in the mirror if i did that as its not fair to any of you. 

I hope that answers your questions.

Yes they could be using me as the pawn, but i dont know that for a fact so i just believe they would not do that until i know for sure.

I think you have the wrong conception of what free means in the software world and you are not alone, many have the wrong thinking. 

Free just means free to use and nothing more.  It does not have anything to do with ownership.  Owership still resides with the developer.  You have a copy to use and that is all it is, nothing more.   Technically, unless you get permission from teh developer, you cannot modify, change, improve, distribute, or call it your own.   That is what free means. 

So to say "i have a copy and can do what i want" is technically and legally and morally wrong.   I was given a set of rules to work with, regardles if free or paid.  If the plugin had errors, had complaints, did not support currrent release, and/or if the developer has abandoned their store, then we suspend the plugin after 30 days notice. 

To me that was a very fair approach, considering that some of those plugins went on for years with complaints, abandonement, no support, and the developer would just collect the money and never lift a finger to help anyone.  That is not good business.  So we solved the problem by suspending the plugin and stopping the flow of cash to them.

And here is how much they cared, they didnt!  None of the longer term abandoned developers even lifted a finger to say "save my plugins i need money"  they just didnt care.  And you want to let them off the hook by continueing to support and distributing their trash.  That i dont not understand! 

Also dont forget that both patricias project and my project will have similar plugins.  So the features that you like you can still get.

You did a good job :)   I often advise people new to coding to do a contact page as a first project.  Its easy to do, it involves all parts of web coding - css, html, js, and php.  It is a good project to start with..

One suggestion is i would replace that old outdated captcha with the at least recaptcha2.  The one you are using has been beaten and hacked many years ago and it cant be trusted anymore.   If you add recaptcha2 you dont have to download the whole library like some people do, it just takes up space for no reason, just use their api and use their service link.  That way its always up to date and you never have to worry about replacing files.

I would not even worry about recaptcha3, its too new, it has alot of people confused, and its buggy and intrusive.  recaptcha2 is widely used and good to use unless you want to do your own question catpcha.  Which might be a good project for you. You can just build a php table with the questions and then choose them at random when the page loads.

The contact page that i use for my projects does  it all, it blocks bots, it limits attempts and then bans them for 15min if they try too many times.  It verifies email is a real live dns email address, it blocks script and it has both a question captcha and recaptcha2 and much more.

So if you decided to do it and need some pointers let me know ill be glad to get you in the right direction... :)

I understand your point of view Chris.  But one thing we have to think about is that the developer only gave access to the public via the store, not some other website.  Sharing it on our forum is one thing, but passing it around will nilly from anywhere else other than the oxwall domain can lead to issues because the agreement was between the developer and oxwall. Once they both discontinued the agreement then the item is void IMO.

Consider this point of view. What if some developer had malicious code in their plugin that no one has found yet, you would be passing around a plugin and infecting others, thats not a good thing either.  That is the main reason for the rules, they are not percieved, they are factually proven to help prevent hacking and malicous behavior. 

This is why many of them were taken down, they were written in a way that left the door wide open for intruders, plus the other issues.  I will bet you that any of those free plugins you have i can point out exactly where the door is open, im sure patricia has seen alot of that as well as SD.

If i had known that Oxwall was just placing me on babysitting duty at the time i might have pressed them to take a less assertive approach. Because if the ship is sinking who cares if the windows are wide open or not.  But at the time when i was given these instructions i too thought "well its about time, they are finally going to come back and start up again on this project"  but that was not the case...  Hind sight...