1. I love Roshan's templates, contributions and efforts - he is simply the best designer by far.
2. I love Tomodachi
3. I'm not sure i love the licence agreement that says you must leave a link to Illinois Wine in the footer. I can understand attributing the author , but attributing a wine maker? I think that's not in spirit of a 'free' template... it could start a whole bag of worms/sponsors that must be attributed..


thoughts?

Posted By: perthmetro1. I think that's not in spirit of a 'free' template... it could start a whole bag of worms/sponsors that must be attributed.
thoughts?

I agree I do not use free templates Im quite capable of making my own
But if I did I would not use this Great template because of the licence
but thats just me.
I have a larger concern over (Enya Lyrics) by flipdarius,
Almost all the links on the template leed to sub pages packed with google adds
and amazon stores.
Is that right?

This actually does create an issue. I believe it can be realted to the "Wordpress Sponsor Templates" issue, where people decide to put sponosred links in templates required by license...

CC Faq

How do I properly attribute a Creative Commons licensed work?

If you are using a work licensed under one of our core licenses (Attribution, Attribution-ShareAlike, Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike, Attribution-NonCommerical, Attribution-NoDerivatives, Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives (this is the same as the Music Sharing license)) or under our Developing Nations license, then the proper way of accrediting your use of a work when you're making a verbatim use is: (1) to keep intact any copyright notices for the Work; (2) credit the author, licensor and/or other parties (such as a wiki or journal) in the manner they specify; (3) the title of the Work; and (4) the Uniform Resource Identifier for the work if specified by the author and/or licensor.

One more worm for the can...

When a user submits a design to OD, they have the choice between 3 licenses:
- Public Domain
- GNU GPL
- Creative Commons

Public Domain is no argument; there's no way an author can put any restrictions on it.

The GNU GPL clearly states that the author may demand attribution, but may not impose other restrictions such as sponsorship.

Notwithstanding any other provision of this License, for material you add to a covered work, you may (if authorized by the copyright holders of that material) supplement the terms of this License with terms:
...
b) Requiring preservation of specified reasonable legal notices or author attributions in that material or in the Appropriate Legal Notices displayed by works containing it;
...
You may not impose any further restrictions on the exercise of the rights granted or affirmed under this License.

For Creative Commons, though, it gets a little less clear.

... the proper way of accrediting your use of a work when you're making a verbatim use is: (1) to keep intact any copyright notices for the Work; (2) credit the author, licensor and/or other parties (such as a wiki or journal) in the manner they specify; ...

ramblingsoul is using the Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 License. He is specifying to credit another party, which, in this case, happens to be Illinois Wine.

It's perfectly legal, though probably not desirable for the users downloading this template.

Posted By: NickyDSaying that, knowing how Roshan is....if you love the template, I would just email him and ask permission to remove that link.

That's exactly what Creative Commons suggests as well.

Frequently Asked Questions - CC WikiIf you want to use a Creative Commons-licensed work in a manner that is not permitted under the terms of the Creative Commons license, you need to contact the creator and/or licensor and ask for their permission.

To keep confusion down:

Posted By: septorAuthors are given the right to append any agreement's they wish to their work.

FALSE. If the work is here, it MUST adhere to the given license. For example, Dieter has kindly placed some of his templates in the public domain, but if you read the template, his words don't match his actions.

Posted By: acousticsamIt's perfectly legal, though probably not desirable for the users downloading this template.

TRUE. A template user would rather not have too many links in the footer of their site, especially a for-profit business site.

The Creative Commons license availible here is only the attribution license, and it needs to be labeld as such on the submission page.

Here is my take on it: I really don't like the required linking to a sponsor, because it cripples many would-be template users. I know that designers need to eat, but I would suggest that leaving a link to the sponsor be made an option in sponsored templates.

bluecafe: you can't modify the link, presumably including its legibility and contrast.

Here is the link to Tomodachi for those who don't want to go looking for it.

Andreas actually has a new template sponsorship scheme in place, whereby each of his templates has a single advertisement placed on the download page (not in the template itself). A purchase is for life under his new system, and each template goes to the highest bidder.

I think we shouldn't have Creative Commons as an option in the Submit A Design page. If we want to be truly open, it needs to be Public Domain or GNU GPL.

Edit: because GNU GPL still allows for author attribution, I don't see the need for CC.

I haven't read all the comments above. But this was something I did expect. and there is one more template in the queue with the same license.

The reason why I wanted a link back to Illinois Wine website is because they sponsored it. I got paid.

However, I don't know how that is against the spirit of Free Templates. and i don't think it is unethical either because

1. in the design submission guidelines, there is nothing that mentions preventing me from including links to a sponsor.

2. I am a design hobbyist. I don't do commercial projects or earn anything from it. When I was offered this option I thought of it as a temporary means to make some money to pay the hosting bill. if you have seen my site, I don't even run an adsense neither sponsored ads.

3. there are 10s of websites using my templates without putting any link back.. and even i have seen people modifying my templates and submitting back here.

but again, if the community feels that it is a template that violates the spirit of Free Templates, then I don't have much to say about that. in that case I suggest updating the submission guidelines. as far as those two templates are concerned ( one already approved, other in the queue) i won't be able to remove the link. because i have already been paid.

For the long time members who have followed the progress of OSWD, OWD and now OD, you will remember the poop hit the fan when OWD added in links to templates without permission of designers or members.

I strongly think that allowing sponsored links in template designs is a bad idea. Search Engines also penalize for paid links, so that could also effect your design and profile pages here on OD.

I think the issue was that admins - without prior consent from the designers - injected the links into the templates. Here the designer himself is doing that. So, i guess there is a difference.

As gnome pointed out, designers need to eat, but funding can be raised via PayPal donations for each designer. Andreas did a lot of this.

I have tried that. but haven't got any. But i don't complain, as i was not really expecting any donations when releasing the templates. except few recent ones, most of my templates were released under Public Domain. as I said earlier, this was just something that I did as a temporary means to quickly get some money.

Anyway, as it seems that it wasn't really a good idea - and probably i should have checked with the admins - I don't mind if admins want to delete the templates from submission, if the community and admins think it is against ethics of Open Design community. I won't be able to remove the links or delete it from OD submission myself, as I have been paid already.

I may be releasing sponsored templates in my website later on. I will certainly not make the mistake of submitting it in OD.

Sorry to have caused troubles. and sorry for long posts.

Posted By: acousticsamI think we shouldn't have Creative Commons as an option in the Submit A Design page. If we want to be truly open, it needs to be Public Domain or GNU GPL.

Edit: because GNU GPL still allows for author attribution, I don't see the need for CC.

I couldn't agree more. I see no need for any other licenses apart from Public Domain or GNU GPL, especially if the OD community doesn't want sponsored links.

I reckon all the admins and mods should vote on it and if agreed put in into action.

Here is the real question: If a design has a sponsored link in it, does that prevent or deter would-be users? Note that it probably cannot be removed by talking and donating to the designer, since the designer has already been paid for the link.
Greg: most of those creative commons designs would be fine under the GPL license.

Posted By: gnome
Greg: most of those creative commons designs would be fine under the GPL license.

like i said, it should be up to each designer. i haven't read the CC or GPL licenses in full so admittedly i have no idea what i'm on about, but there may be circumstances in which one license is preferred over the other (correct me if i'm wrong). but ultimately if a designer wants their free contribution to the community to be released under the CC license, then that should be acceptable to everyone here.

re-arron's last post: I don't like sponsored-link thing because it doesn't just bring traffic to the sponsor. It brings ranking, since the site owners cannot legally get rid of the link or make it a rel=nofollow link. Sponsored links are not bad all by themselves, but not allowing people to remove links to sponsors is not great. This is just like TLA: the sponsor is not buying traffic, they are buying Search Engine Rankings.

I am not confused, but my opinion is certainly changing as this discussion progresses. I no longer feel that we should disallow this in designs, but I do feel that such a scheme is detrimental to the design in question. One thing that has not changed in my opinion: there are much better sponsorship solutions.

Here's another way to look at it. Lets say the sponsored link goes to a site that doesn't mesh well with the person using the site? That could be bad.

What about what sort of sponsored link is available? What if some porn site wants to pay you a lot of money to sponsor a theme? That could be bad.

An example would be arwen54. She does a lot of templates that get used. At one point someone used a design of hers for a porn site. Her link was on the site. She started getting all sorts of emails from people bashing her for running a porn site. She was not. It was just her design.

The point is a lot of people can't figure out what an author link is verses a designer link and even a sponsored link.

Also, each persons profile link here on OD is pretty well indexed in search engines, so not only is the persons design giving the sponsor traffic from being used all over the net, OD is also providing traffic to the persons sponsored link and to add fuel to the fire, OD isn't getting paid or anything from the sponsor yet OD is sending them traffic.

Maybe we should add the no follow tag to the preview designs? Not to the actual download files, only to what is shown on the demo here on OD.

Thoughts?

Posted By: jrochmanRegardless, RS has released many templates and has asked for nothing in return and was just trying an alternative avenue to allow him to keep releasing well designed free templates.

I don't think anybody is blaming ramblingsoul at all. This is a very elaborated template actually not one of those you expect getting for free. I think it's just that people have become sensitive if it comes to imposed ads. It's probably more the fear that this method could start becoming popular. Since ramblingsoul's templates are quite popular other designers could feel tempted to copy this method. This is why a template by RS is more likely to start a discussion like this than those of other designers.

Another method to get paid for a template could be to offer a basic free version and a premium version with some extra features for money. Just a thought ...

Not that this is the case here, but if the sponsor expressly commissioned the designer to create a template so that it could be released for free to the community, I do not see why it is OK for the designer to have link recognition, but not the sponsor. Assuming the template would not exist but for the sponsorship, then the end user is getting something very real in return for helping the sponsor (i.e., they are getting a professionally done template at the cost of a link instead of hundreds of dollars).

@jrockman: That's not the case here. The sponsor paid for a link in a template, not for the template to be created.

ramblingsoul said: "When I was offered this option I thought of it as a temporary means to make some money to pay the hosting bill."

If this sort of thing is going to be allowed, random people or companies being able to pay for a link in templates on OD and the sponsored link has to stay as part of a license, the future of OD will be in jeopardy and open us up to a link spam fest within designs and templates.

I still think it's a bad idea. It sure would be nice if the other 2 admins would chime in as well as some of the other 10 moderators...

Come on guys...

No sponsored links, please!

This argument has been thrashed to death elsewhere over and over again.

Designer links good but sponsored links in templates equals spam. End of story.

Posted By: jrochmanSean, what would your thoughts be if that was the case (i.e., sponsor paid to have template created)? Then would such a link be allowable?

A sponsor is actually not paying for the template but for link exposure. The template is just means to an end. If the designer designs the template only to get paid and the sponsor is only paying with their marketing campaign in mind it is some kind of misuse of the open source idea (imho).

Maybe I'm a little naive here, but is it truly an open source template if money has changed hands? I have no trouble paying back a designer through a link to his site, but I won't pay a third party who I would never link to in the first place.

I wonder, if i hadn't put that license agreement text in the front page no one wouldn't have noticed it. because if you all say that sponsoring an ad is adding link spam and something that you don't encourage how do you explain this

Link

that template has 3 links and one of them leads to a blog, stuffed with adsense and doesn't have anything to do with web design or templates.

link

this one, the one we have on the front page, has links to a few of other websites again loaded with adsense and some texts about Enya.

P.S., the second link to reference goes to the design authors blog, so that seems to be ok. If they want to have adsense on there own site, that's there business.

I agree. I think everyone must understand the spirit of this site. I can't see what CC can give to this 'spirit' that GNU GPL can't.

I understand people must eat, but OD is not the place to starve off that hunger. OD is for nice people doing nice things without wanting to take advantage of the OD spirit.

I think it should be more like... If the designers don't like it (the licence), then they don't have to submit their templates, rather than if we don't like the designer's licence then we don't have to download it.

Having templates that have sponsored links plastered all over them is not new here, some designs are covered with them, but at least they give us the option to be able to remove them. A template isn't a template nor is it free if you have to keep certain elements in it.

This discussion is not a bad thing, it's good as it was eventually going to happen. It's how we deal with it that matters.

Posted By: Sean@ramblingsoul: I think the main issue with your design was you made it a mandatory requirement that people keep a link to a sponsored link within your design.

I'm sure as you pointed out there are other designs on OD with links to non design author sites but I do believe yours was the first to require that a sponsored link remain even after someone downloads your design.

Exactly Sean that is the big issue here.

Let's do something/anything