Credits for new skin?

[Unatomic]

Hi all,

as i promised, i have finished my rainmeter skin and i want to share it with you.
the problem i face is that i have used some other skins in order to create it.
My skin consists of about 70% my own skins that i created and about 30% from skins that i used and customized most of them.

QUESTION: what should i do for the used skins? Should i write credits? Could i just upload the skin? I realy do not want to offence some other people by "stealing" their work. should i write a "read me" in the skin folder explaining that?

Thank you in advance on my next post i am uploading the skin.

[FlyingHyrax]

I would definitely include at least a Readme listing the people who you derived skins from, even if you did change them around. Also, in those skins that aren't totally yours, you can add the original author to the skin metadata section along with yourself:
[Metadata]
Author=(yourName) | (theirName)

...if you want to be really careful, then make sure to double check the license of the skins you modded.

[Unatomic]

Well... I... dont know the authors... :-D

Basicly just 2 skins are about the same.
But again i do not have the original skins and i dont know the authors.

However i am not interested in writting me as an author at metadata and stuff.

Should i write a read me for credits explaining the situation about the loss of the original authors?

Anyway thank you for the reply.

[Kaelri]

If you don't know where the skins came from, then just trace them back as far as you can. Include a link to the site (or sites) where you downloaded them.

As for the format, it doesn't really matter whether you put your credits in a readme, in comments embedded in the skin code, or on a webpage somewhere. (I personally do all three, but I'm a little more fastidious than most authors. :) The important thing is just to make it easy for people to find.

[StarburstSpectrum]

It's a pretty complicated question with many factors to consider. Basically just follow the motto "Give credit where credits due" but there are many things to consider.

If you use a font included with windows should you have to credit microsoft? or the original font creator microsoft got it from? Does every single font ever used in a rainmeter skin need to be credited? If I use code from the tutorial on the rainmeter docs should I have to credit rainmeter or the person who wrote the docs? To take it even further shouldn't you credit the makers and inventors of computers and electricity? Credit tesla for creating alternating current because you used it in the making of your skin.

Sometimes the code is just inherently going to be the same. Should everyone credit the illustro skin because they used the code Meter=String?

People seem to have different definitions of what it means to "Make" a skin.

I also feel like pointing out that microsoft got its start stealing from apple/xerox. And the movie studios got started illegally making movies in california because they were too far away for new yorkers to effectively prosecute (they tried a lot).

If I steal code from one of my own skins should I credit myself? "Yes I'd like to thank myself for being such a great skin creator"

What if you give credit to someone who stole the code from someone else?

I don't consider it a big deal really unless your trying to make money off of it.

Basically just be level headed about it, and basically "give credit where credits due."

[Unatomic]

A big thanks to both of you.
Starburst nice way of thinking. i had similar thoughts but my thoughts would not prevent me from offending the original creator. anyway i supose as i dont do it for money it is ok then. i will try to search the authors of the two skins and upload my creation.