[mythtv-theming] Blue Abstract modifications

[Per Lundberg]

On Tue, Dec 7, 2010 at 5:27 AM, Miststlkr <miststlkr at gmail.com> wrote:

> I've been tweaking the default 10.04 mythbuntu theme under the same
> impetus.  Little things, like making the light gray "selected" background a
> light violet so it stands out more, and not-so-little things like completely
> rearranging the mythvideo tree view, and reorganizing the menus.
> Unfortunately, also like you, so far I have only touched the screens we use
> the most... I hadn't thought to post pics or thought about if it would be
> proper to redistribute a modified/tweaked theme, is that fair game?  I was
> thinking I would have to make some serious changes in order to distribute
> them.

This brings up an incredibly important issue: licensing for themes...

As far as I know, there isn't any "official" license for the Blue
Abstract theme (Please, correct me if I'm wrong). This means a couple
of things:

- Including the theme in the "main" MythTV distribution will not be possible.
- Making derivative themes will be a "gray zone". Yes, of course we
can do whatever we like on our own machines, but can we distribute
such changes?

I would say that the GNU GPL and perhaps also the Creative Commons
licenses do a great job in defining these aspects of the accepted use
of a piece of work. Thus, it would be really, *really* nice if we
could get official license terms for each theme. It makes the rules
much more explicit for everyone.

GNU GPL is very liberal on these issues: you may make as many derivate
works as you like, as long as you license these works under the terms
of the GNU GPL. The BSD and MIT licenses are even more permissive.
Still, I think I would encourage the use of more "copyleft"-ish
licenses for these themes; if not for anything else, for the simple
fact that it encourages derivate works, and it makes the rules very
clear. Even if an original author leaves the project, for one reason
or another, someone else can always (if they like ) continue the work,
make updated versions and so forth.

BSD and MIT are a bit "too" liberal in this sense, because you risk
having the "most popular" version of the theme be a derived work,
licensed under a more strict license... and there your freedom went,
down the drain...
-- 
Best regards,
Per Lundberg