In December 2025 I deleted my account on extensions.gnome.org, the official store for GNOME Shell extensions. I expected my three extensions to go with it. They didn't.

ClipFlow Pro, Comfort Control (EaseHub) and Numeric Date And Clock are still listed there, under a placeholder account called "MaintainerWanted", with old builds I no longer control, test or support. Nothing on the deletion page warned me this would happen, and with the account gone I have no way to switch them off myself.

This post is the full timeline, where it stands today, and a warning for other extension authors.

The old ClipFlow Pro listing on extensions.gnome.org, now by MaintainerWanted, still installable

The timeline

  • 18 October 2026. I asked GNOME to remove the three listings, on the extensions.gnome.org issue tracker (on GNOME's own GitLab) and by email to the GNOME Foundation.
  • 3–10 November. A personal-data request to the Foundation's data team, plus two GitLab support tickets. The tickets got automatic replies only.
  • 11 November. The site's maintainer refused. The position, in short: the extensions are open source, so the site keeps the listings, and the right to hand them to a new maintainer stays with them.
  • 11 November. I added ownership statements to all three GitHub repositories.
  • 13 November. 1-star reviews on Trustpilot for gnome.org and extensions.gnome.org; a message to the Better Business Bureau serving the San Francisco Bay Area (where the GNOME Foundation is registered); reports to the US FTC (ReportFraud.ftc.gov) and econsumer.gov; and a complaint to Israel's Privacy Protection Authority.
  • 13 November. After a heated exchange, the issue was locked. I said more than I should have there, and I've said so to the Foundation.
  • 14 November. I updated the notices on GitHub and on my profile.

My ownership statement in the ClipFlow Pro README on GitHub

Where it stands (14 November 2026, 14:10 Israel time)

The three listings are still up and still installable. There's no answer yet from the Foundation's data team or from the regulators. I'll update this post if that changes.

The contrast

I wrote the code and I hold the copyright. I asked politely, in writing, for four weeks. The site that hosts my old builds says it can keep them.

Here's what I think is true on both sides:

  • The licence part is real. ClipFlow Pro is GPL-3.0, the other two are MIT. Anyone who received a copy may keep sharing it. I can't take that back, and I'm not trying to.
  • But a licence is permission, not obligation. It lets a site keep sharing the code; it doesn't force a store to keep an author's name, account history and old builds online after the author has withdrawn them.
  • "GNOME extension" describes what the software plugs into, not who owns it. A Chrome extension doesn't belong to Google either.

My 1-star Trustpilot review of extensions.gnome.org

My 1-star Trustpilot review of The GNOME Project

If you write GNOME extensions

  1. Set your extensions inactive before you delete your account. Afterwards you can't.
  2. Keep a canonical source (GitHub, GitLab, Codeberg) and say clearly in the README which builds are yours.
  3. Keep copies of your review emails and account notices. They're your proof of authorship later.

Where to get my extensions

Only from GitHub: github.com/nickotmazgin

Please don't install the old extensions.gnome.org listings. Builds published there by anyone else are not made, reviewed or supported by me.