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smoke999 In reply to garryts [2014-07-07 11:35:55 +0000 UTC]

I've no idea but to be honest I'm not sure it'd be ethical for me to accept money for remakes such as this. Donations to help "keep the lights on" for my theming in general might be a nice thing though. Like some sites allow people to donate a certain amount of money a month. 

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garryts In reply to smoke999 [2014-07-07 13:27:06 +0000 UTC]

If it was a case of taking resources from the shapeshifter theme and stuffing them into Flavours, then yes I would agree... But it isn't; the changes to the Finder, limitations in Flavours itself, as well as the need to make the themes retina-ready all require building the resources from scratch. And, importantly, it can't be exactly the same - ever.

I'm not sure donationware ever works - my experience is that if people don't have to give, they won't.

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smoke999 In reply to garryts [2014-07-07 13:54:36 +0000 UTC]

I was thinking of how certain web sites like Toy Break (toybreak.com) do it where people can donate to their "cause" if they want to. Each episode they mention how many states have donated and they've got people from around the world donating with only a couple of states having no one who has donated. On the other hand I'm not sure exactly how many (from each state) do or how much they get from that. 

I'm actually with you there. I've felt that the work necessary to adapt a theme when making a remake often times is enough to constitute a new thing. Most of the time I don't even have access to old resources and have to remake them by eyeballing it. 

However, a prominent minimalist themer came here and chewed me out for using "resources" because my flavours elements are especially in that one case (Siro) close enough to be confused with the original. So as far as he was concerned I just ripped the resources from the shapeshifter theme and slapped them into mine wholesale. Much like I used to do when I was making Windowblinds themes and Mac themers used to send me extracted resource files to help me along. 

Certain people in the Flavours store give me no credit for the work I have done only crediting the original designer when modifying and rereleasing my themes... one person even credited "Creative Commons" instead of me as if that was a person. No, that's the license I usually go with.

So yeah, I could see me getting in some hot water accepting money for a theme remake like this. Rights issues may arise, etc. I'm pretty sure certain people would say me accepting money for a remake constitutes me claiming it's my own totally original work even more so than me just releasing it. Such is life. =\ 

Another thing is if I chose to only charge for totally original works such as iDevice Colours then people might just download and use my arguably more popular and higher profile remakes for free.

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garryts In reply to smoke999 [2014-07-07 16:30:29 +0000 UTC]

Well, it's worth a try - it doesn't cost anything beyond effort to add a donation button to your site, after all...

I guess I'm slightly jaundiced as I have seen too many app developers move from donation-are to shareware because no one has given them a cent. Here, 99% of people don't even let me know what they do with the resources I make available - which is all I ask!

I think the Flavours team need to force an automatic credit - the Flavours editor knows when you're copying a resource from an existing theme, after all.

it probably does pay to be cautious; in Europe (at least) you are granted an automatic copywrite on any work of art that you publish - this covers written work as well as images. I'm sure that this would also apply to design pieces such as interface themes.

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smoke999 In reply to garryts [2014-07-07 17:21:01 +0000 UTC]

The could have perhaps a page in the store for each author that shows all their work and has a donate button with different options. I don't have a personal web site right now. Perhaps sometime.. don't want to bite off more than I can chew though. One time I was attempting to make a web site (during my Windows days) and I got burned out and left theming for a while.

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garryts In reply to smoke999 [2014-07-07 20:22:49 +0000 UTC]

Would be good if they could do that - since they need theme artists as much as you need their editor...

Wouldn't a WordPress site be enough - slightly modified off-the-shelf theme?

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