cyberham

I love this template! I'm using this template with minor modifications on a very new site - Desert Lane - which is still being developed. It has been a bit of fun finding where to make my changes as I'm still quite PHP illiterate.

absalom

It's somewhat more than just full attribution. It's full attribution and licenced for non-commercial use only and the fact you can only share your revised template under the same licence (attribution, non-commercial, sharealike). You can't make money due to representation based on the template - a straight news portal without ads qualifies as non-commercial, a news portal with ads blurs the line as "commercial advantage", even just to maintain the servers which support the news service can be considered commercial. Personal blogs, by and large, don't qualify as commercial. Community forums and NGOs, by and large, also don't qualify as commercial (although it does change if you have commercial subscriptions/membership features). If you're thinking of using it on a client's business web presence we will need to talk

At the moment, I'm dealing with clients regarding this template on a case by case basis (and yes, I have had to get people around the world to take down their sites due to licence violations).

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Absalom Media :: W3C CSS templating for Joomla and Mambo
Absalom Media Templates hosted at MamboForge

rwbplano

Thanks for the clarification. I understood commercial to mean the template itself, original or modified, used for resale i.e. TemplateMonster. As this will eventually become a commercial venture, I'll find another solution.

leojmelsrub

Love the clean look of this template.

Tried to install it on my site and it works fine in Firefox, but refuses to load in IE - just gives me an Operation Aborted error message. All other templates work with no problem however.

Absalom - any idea why?

absalom

Operation aborted? that sounds like your browser has issues..

__________________
Absalom Media :: W3C CSS templating for Joomla and Mambo
Absalom Media Templates hosted at MamboForge

absalom

I've had a look at your site and you state the following:

"We are in the process of locating another "look" for this site. This is due to the fact that we have not cast in stone all of the future content that this site will contain. Our crystal ball broke a long time ago and we cannot find a repairman for it. The "corporate" template is nice but we feel that the terms that ride along with using it are too restrictive for any level of normal creativity.
We seriously wonder why it was released to the public-at-large."
http://www.desertlane.com/content/view/24/2/

There are 3 seperate issues in your claims here.
1) You don't even know what your site is for.
2) You mistakenly believe "normal creativity" is restricted to something you don't agree with in the licence itself (which you don't explain).
3) You belittle the fact I released the design because there was significant demand in the community for it.

Let's go through this piecemeal, shall we?

1: If you can finalise what your site is for, then perhaps we can talk as to whether or not you need a commercial licence for it (now or in the future?). I also notice (in the interim) you're running a flavour of the Akogreenportal template under a similar Creative Commons licence as Absalom Media's "Corporate" template, which either means Arthur Konze wants control of his templates (I don't see Akogreen listed as a commercial template anymore), or you're relicencing his GPL based work as something else. You can't relicence GPL material, let alone other people's commercial material as Creative Commons merely because you feel like it. Just what part of Arthur's work are you claiming a Creative Commons licence ? The licence is Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0, which means you have to give attribution to Arthur Konze anyway..

2: "the terms that ride along with using it are too restrictive for any level of normal creativity" ?

The Creative Commons licence is designed for human readability for a reason. So anyone, not just a lawyer, can understand what they can and can't do with a piece of design/layout/art/media licenced under it. Normal creativity is in no way stifled by this licence - all it asks is that people retain attribution for the person originally doing the work, not use it in a way to gain "commercial advantage", and to continue to share the modifications and variations on the original design - in this case the "Corporate" template under the same licence. Those are the terms - basically, you don't scam people into believing what you started in the design with is under your copyright, that if you want to use the design commercially, you ask me and we work out something, and if you publically release the modified design, you do so under the same licence. Simple.

I see no way that these licence terms limit creativity. I've been using them for over a year without hassle, and numerous other design firms around the world also release work under CC licencing e.g.the CSS Zen Garden. Creativity isn't commercial advantage, nor is it holding copyright over something. Creativity isn't scamming people into believing you did all the work - that's shoddy business ethics. Creativity is this: using your design skills and talents to make the design do what you want it to do. Prove me wrong

3: You state "We seriously wonder why it was released to the public-at-large". Well, there was a demand for it. There is still demand for it, which is why I've had to release 2 versions of the design. Now I hope this helps broaden your understanding of the hows and whys of what Absalom Media has done in delivering the "Corporate" template to the Mambo community, and gives you a heads-up as to where your knowledge is severely lacking in terms of what licences actually allow you to do.

By all means, be creative. Take my design apart and make it part of your own ideas. Just don't think creativity is linked to you holding full copyright over all the work you do on it, even if it does end up in a commercial setting.

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Absalom Media :: W3C CSS templating for Joomla and Mambo
Absalom Media Templates hosted at MamboForge

cyberham

Absalom, the following statement that you made led to my removal of your template:

Please note that I still love the template.

I felt that my site will likely fall into your blurry area as I run adsense ads. The site may eventually have other affilliate ads as well, something I cannot predict. Although it's very doubtful, there may eventually be a handcrafted item for sale of our own creation. We're not a business nor do we plan to become one, but I cannot rule that out if over the course of time things change. My crystal ball is shattered.

Just where does the line fall to determine if a site is "commercial" or "personal with ads or an item for sale" fall? After your statement above, I felt quite uncomfortable using your template. I felt too restricted by your statement.

Then there's this:
The Creative Commons license you see is mine, it does not come with the Akogreen template. It is for my content alone and I use the the CCL on all of my sites. When I was running your template both licenses were visible. I do not create templates, at least not yet. I simply don't have the time at this time to learn how. I also do not remove copyright or other such notices placed by creators of templates, modules, components, etc. as I feel they should be given full credit for their work.

Finalize what the site is for? It will be primarily content about assorted topics. What those topics are will evolve over the course of time. I have sites that are concentrated on specific topics, this site won't be concentrated on any one topic.

To be quite honest, I'd love to put your template back in use -- but not without your explicit approval.

leojmelsrub

Please elaborate if you have a chance. I am running IE 6, SP2.

This problem is not confined to your corporate template either, I tried to install AB Typeface and ran into the same message. Maybe something in your CSS that IE doesn't like?

As I mentioned in my previous post, the site loads fine in Firefox and when I use other templates the same problem does not reappear.

what do you think?

absalom

Can you view my demo site (which has both corporate and typeface ) ?

__________________
Absalom Media :: W3C CSS templating for Joomla and Mambo
Absalom Media Templates hosted at MamboForge

Trv

Sorry, I didn't see this thread before I posted elsewhere. I very much like the clean look of Corporate and have used it on 'my site' www.torquayfc.com (a local Australian Rules football club). The problem is that we have sponsors that I'd like to recognise on the site.They sponsor the club in general, not the site. We are strictly a community-based org. No one is paid. Is it possible to add a banner1 area?