Modding of a theme would technically be allowed no matter what if it's for personal use. I mean, you can't really moderate something like that. Releasing said mods is a different story, of course.
If I released a winamp skin and stated that i dont want anyone modying it for any reason. If someone modified it anyways and even showed it off in a screenshot, I dont think there is really anything I can do about it.
Well for me personally, not out of arrogance or speaking for anyone in administration on customize.org or visionleague.
I don't like to see something that I've worked on for days/weeks altered without permission. I've seen some alterations to other visual styles and wallpapers which are heinous and for me disrespects the original idea of the authors work.
Knowing that not all authors feel the same way there are many other choices to pick from who will freely give you permission to mod thier works but Is that so wrong of me to ask that of you? friends and others of the community to respect the wishes of authors who don't want it done?
customize.org staff member relations - accounts visionleague™
what if i change your vs's font to be more readable on a daily basis (i personally hate pixel fonts and all caps fonts)? or what if i tweak the colors slightly so that vs is better suited to my monitor? i don't feel that i've disrespected the author's original intent; in fact, i think the author would be proud that he/she made something so kickass that everyone was wanting to put their own personal spin on it. but hey, that's just my two cents.
Max does brig up some good points. but i think that modding somebody else's work is fine, so long as you don't redistribute it, take credit for all of it, and so on.
a modder simply takes the artist's original concepts and ideas and expands upon them, anding his/her own elements to suit their flavour and style.
people aren't always going to follow the artist's wishes and not modify their work. if you are cocerend about your work being modified and wish it no to be, why submit it? if it's a quality skin/wallpaper/vs, it's likely to get modified. there's is nothing you can do about it, you have no control over the masses.
It's not just that you can't really do anything about it, but it's kind of rediculous in an environment that's all about "ultimate" customization.
In the end, it's just a screenshot. You may find it disrespectful to your design idea, (especially if it blows) but I think it's more disrespectful to the customization community to put restrictions on what they can and can't do.
WinT would have gotten nowhere if Microsoft had said "No don't fuck with that, well ok, but don't show anyone"
You can do whatever you want to any of my images on customize.org. But give me credit, don't pretend you made them or try to sell them. That would make me sad and diminish my oh so strong faith in humanity.
colossus72 [c72] Customize.org Staff member relations, submissions.
on the other side of the coin, this sort of recent push towards "open source" design has been kind of nice too, like with senex's suite and enfusion's wallpaper 'forward'. granted the original authors should always be given due credit, at least its encouraging a little variation and getting custoers to get their hands a little dirty, rather than simply putting pieces of suites together that they had no part in. ideally, anyways.
i don't really agree , if you only want people to start using visual styles and stuff in its original released form than everybody should just stop customizing and stick to the original window xp theme ...cause that also is a theme someone has put lots of time in etc ....if you look in microsofts policy they also feel its a crime to change annything about windows....but i don't see "annybody including you " here respecting that policy , point blank , so there's some contradiction in you're statement imho
Holy crap! That's a big message! And I thought a 30K image was nuts!
Generic, you and everyone else who disagrees are entitled to your opinion of what you think is right or wrong in the scenario but you are only partially correct when you referenced the following
'.if you look in microsofts policy they also feel its a crime to change annything about windows....but i don't see "annybody including you " here respecting that policy , point blank , so there's some contradiction in you're statement imho'
Microsoft added the ability to change themes in windows XP, It's a built in feature! which means they expected the creation of additional styles and themes.
I've broken no such policy by creating visual styles! In fact if it was big problem that they were in disagreement with they would be after sites that host them to shut them down like they do pirate sites.
What they are mostly speaking about when you say 'they feel it's a crime to change anything about windows' is reverse engineering and direct hacking of the various dll files and exe's shipped with windows.
The only thing im guilty of, is using a program such as stylexp to be able to use the themes I've created. That does'nt relinquish my rights as an author to control how my works are displayed.
I remember a few months back when there was a big fiasco about windowblinds being able to convert .msstyle themes to .wb format everyone including myself was up in arms about author's rights.. so what's the difference now?
Respect author's rights
customize.org staff member relations - accounts visionleague™
I remember the issue with windowblinds, was the fact that stardock would indirectly benefit from .msstyle authors, because their program would allow users to convert them to .wb format. Making Stardock $ off of the creations of .msstyle authors.
The idea itself of .msstyle being converted to .wb format, wasnt neccesarily rejected. If it were a freeware program, most would have probably been ok with it.
Telling people that they cannot change your visual style is like Nike telling you that you cant switch out your white laces in your carolina blue shoes for some red laces. Nike might not want you walking around in their shoes now that you have made them look ugly, but there is nothing they can really do about it.
If Microsoft's engineers expected the creation and use of alternate visual styles to become widespread, why didn't they make .msstyles an open format, and why can't Windows XP use non-Microsoft themes without the use of third-party software or a hacked library?
It was locked because microsoft does not want to provide support for stuff they did not create. for instance if someone created a theme that screws up they way they would normally have an item displayed. Tech support is hard job I used to do it so I understand the mindset behind that aspect of it.
Xp cannot use non microsoft themes for the same reason.. it all boils down to support. :)
customize.org staff member relations - accounts visionleague™
but non the less i totaly agree with frostedflames here...lets be honost , you can include a read me file together with you suite saying "i do not want annybody editing this visual style" its you're right to ask that since you made it , but you as everybody else knows that it isn't going to happin ...there is no way annybody ever will be able to make "the 100% perfect" visual style ,as long as there is going to be difference in taste there's always going to be liltl details people would have liked to see otherwise , to me it could be the font ,someone else might think it would have looked cuter in pink with a twist of purple ..when that person knows how to edit a them trust me he/she will edit it to his likings no mather what the read me says ....
..and i wouldn't take it to that level seeing it as a personal atack saying that its disrespectfull to the authors work and so against the author ...its just customizing in this case
Holy crap! That's a big message! And I thought a 30K image was nuts!
Im still waiting on the end all for it though.. to be able to lock the .msstyle file where it can only be ported and edited by me either by an encryption key or something :)
customize.org staff member relations - accounts visionleague™
agree , if you would do that then maybe you should just make suites for yourself and not share them with others ...people want sommething new ,sommething new turns to sommething old quite fast so after a few weeks when people have seen it it turns boring and want to move on ...new stuff gets released, new walls, icons VS ... in collors that do not match you're visual style then they jump on that while you're uneditable vs is just going to take in hard disk space for sitting in a folder somewhere
also software company's been trying for years to secure theyre software from being cracked without anny luck ...its just going to be a mather of time for some smart kid to find out how to sail around that encryption ker or whatever .
Holy crap! That's a big message! And I thought a 30K image was nuts!
If say userA writes in his designer notes that he does not want his rainlender skin to be modified in any way and userB submits a screenshot with a modified version of the rainlender skn. Would it be wrong for the staff to support userA's wishes and remove userB's screenshot?
iff the staff would support userA's wishes customize.org would be dead in a few months and annother site would take advantage of that ....
then you would have everybody kinda showing of submiting the same set ups ,whats fun about that ? its the creativity of people what they do that makes it fun , i don't want to see 20 of the same SS with only the wall, wnamp ... and icons changing ,whats the point in that ?
Holy crap! That's a big message! And I thought a 30K image was nuts!
IMO its free to edit just give credit. period. LOL it kinda rhymed.. thats why were here right? "customize" well, if we're not allowed to customize what will we do then? realising it w/o permission is the only bad thing..
