Questions about taking over old/inactive plug-in

I've been working on an old inactive plug-in I found in the forums bringing it up to date and such. Now I want to make an own bukkitdev page for it. But before I do that I would like some questions answered. I've read the FAQ I've could find but they didn't seem to answer these.

1. It's ok to take over old/inactive plug-ins, right?
2. When you want to create a server mod you are shown this message
   
   
   
   Now when the original author is unreachable, what do? Can't really get they permission if you can't reach them and identity theft seems like a bit of too much work.
3. Or does it only means that I can't use the original name and such. So if I modify the plug-in a lot and give it a new name and all, will that be ok?

I might have some more questions, but these are the ones that feels most important right now.

 

Well, not to be too obvious, but did you try to contact the original author?

 

I think he did!

 

I did, but she haven't been on here for months.
Guess I could give you links to the plug-in I've been updating and such. But I would like to get an general answer rather than one for just my case.

 

@Pogono
Out of curiosity, who is it?
I bet it's @Nijikokun.

 

2. If the original author is not reachable, you can contact a moderator about it.
@resba Told me about it ;P. You want proof? Click here. Check out the 2nd post on his wall.
1. Yes, it is OK to take over old/inactive plugins.
3. Yeah, that's ok.
Although you took over an old/inactive plugin, REMEMBER TO GIVE CREDIT TO THE ORIGINAL AUTHOR!

 

Thanks for the answers, I will crate a bukkitdev project later and see what happens, was still planning to credit the original creators. I'm currently trying to optimise the mod while waiting for bukkit for 1.0 to drop, so it's currently very unstable. So any release will have to wait.

@SwearWord
No it's not Nijikokun, it's this mod that I've started working on, Laurina is it's original creator.

Thanks again for the answers.

 

@Pogono
Oh thought it was another case of someone thinking Nijikokun is a girl.