What happens if a plugin purchased from the Marketplace gets discontinued?

[David Yu]

If I purchase a commercial plugin, what happens if the vendor disappears? Does Atlassian have access to the source so that it can be saved?

Has anyone else ever been through this situation?

I wish to avoid having a plugin block us from upgrading in the future.

[jnolen · Accepted solution]

When you license a commercial plugin, you have the right to run that plugin in perpetuity. If a vendor disappears, for whatever reason, your plugin will continue to function in that version of JIRA indefinitely.

Of course, eventually you'll be ready to upgrade JIRA and eventually one of those upgrades will introduce an incompartibility that would prevent the plugin from functioning. In practice, there is usually a long period of time in which to prepare for that.

Atlassian does not keep the source of third party plugins, so unfortunately, we wouldn't be able to go in and fix things. You would have to eventually remove the no-longer-compatible plugin to keep upgrading JIRA.

[Bob Swift]

I provided this answer on a old related question some time ago and other answers are also relevant. I would just add that having source is only valuable for a small set of customers that would have the ability (skills) and resources (time and money) to assume ownership.

[Radu Dumitriu]

To avoid such problems:

1. Use open-source plugins

- OR -

2. If the plugin is commercial, ask the plugin vendor if he offers code escrow services (for instance, we offer that automatically, Kepler just believes in business etics). That would minimize the upgrade impact.

[JamieA]

But customer should bear the cost of the escrow service if it's not already set up.