License for oUF:Elen

[JDoubleU00]

I am tweaking oUF:Elen for my personal needs, but I do not see a license statement anywhere. On the addon's page, in a file etc... How is this handled if someday I wanted to release a layout based off of this?

[Mortarius]

I would first attempt to contact the author through their addon page and state your intentions. Normally it is okay to change and add an addon to your compilation as long as you give credit where credit is due, but still better to get an okay from the actual offer.

[Seerah]

If there is nothing, then there is no license. You have no license to do anything.

/edit to be less cryptic: Licenses *give* permissions. A lack of a license, means that no permissions are granted.

[JDoubleU00]

Originally Posted by Seerah If there is nothing, then there is no license. You have no license to do anything. /edit to be less cryptic: Licenses *give* permissions. A lack of a license, means that no permissions are granted.

Thanks for the edit. Otherwise a lack of an explanation...

[gmarco]

CurseForge has a mandatory field for the license, but OUF_Elen is not there :-/ so I think the only way you have to know is ask the author directly via pm.

Please let us know which kind of license it is :-)

[JDoubleU00]

PM sent. I am learning, so I may have to roll my own layout (i.e. recode from scratch).

[JDoubleU00]

If there is no license and no response from the owner, how much rework is needed for it to be different? Can any code be kept? I assume change unique variables etc...

[Phanx]

Originally Posted by rocnroll If there is no license and no response from the owner, how much rework is needed for it to be different? Can any code be kept? I assume change unique variables etc...

If it's the same code, then making cosmetic changes like renaming variables, replacing tabs with spaces, or removing line breaks doesn't change the fact that it's the same code. If you copy Harry Potter, but change all the character names, stylize all the dialogue with a Jamaican accent, and use a thesaurus to replace randomly selected adjectives, you're still plagiarizing.

If there's no license and the author doesn't give you permission (either by saying "no" or just not responding) then technically you'd have to rewrite the layout yourself from scratch, without using any of the original code. Copying the in-game appearance and behavior is fine though.

[gmarco]

Hi all,

I also started studying/copying/pasting/cutting/modifying from OUF_Elen because it was the layout I really understand better for my programming style.

But I think the result is so different (and probably much worse :-) that is very difficult to understand at first glance and without reading deeply the code (and here also there are so many differences now) that my layout is derived from Elen.

Btw what I think I have taken from Elen and not from any other layout is the idea and the setup of the layout. How it is written and coded not the code (vars, functions etc etc) itself that it is not the interesting part for a person that want to make the own layout and so have to change it a lot.
Obviusly if a day I'll released it (if ....) I include a clause stating that this works was derived by OUF_Elen layout.
Is not enough ?

BTW I'd to code my layout using a different approach (to experiment a little bit) and simplified it more.
Probably when I'll finish I'll rewrite from scratch :-)

The result of mine layout and the original Elen is here. Elen is the beautifull one. Guess which one :-)




Thanks.

[Petrah]

Originally Posted by Phanx If it's the same code, then making cosmetic changes like renaming variables, replacing tabs with spaces, or removing line breaks doesn't change the fact that it's the same code. If you copy Harry Potter, but change all the character names, stylize all the dialogue with a Jamaican accent, and use a thesaurus to replace randomly selected adjectives, you're still plagiarizing.

Originally Posted by Phanx If there's no license and the author doesn't give you permission (either by saying "no" or just not responding) then technically you'd have to rewrite the layout yourself from scratch, without using any of the original code. Copying the in-game appearance and behavior is fine though.

I agree with this, 100%. Weather or not there is a visible license the addon is copyrighted.

http://copyright.gov/help/faq/faq-general.html

[JDoubleU00]

Understood, it is a good learning experience though.