Analog Cassete Deck Theme

[RaiderX]

Antoher quality theme from PHK! Keep making these man, I love em!

[seani]

Just popped this onto my landscaped GigaBeat and it looks terrific - absolutely nothing to quibble with from my POV.

[spike66]

This is a very old thread, sorry about that, but decided to post here regarding this:

...
That being said, the wiki galleries are going bye bye soon when the official theme site goes live.  The graveyards I think can be left behind, but I would rather concentrate efforts on getting the gallery themes up and running.

Does it mean the graveyard themes are going to the trash soon or are you going to keep them around for archival purposes?

(taken from this thread http://forums.rockbox.org/index.php?topic=18633.msg135073#msg135073)

because although most of the themes in the graveyard do not work, it is possible to download them as they are, and fix them... for personal use. I rediscovered this theme there, and now I have a modified version in my iPod. I love it, I can't think of a better theme when listening to 80's oldies; yes I'm a nostalgic man, I know, but to the author of this theme, thanks, you've made a happy man very old  Hopefully you'll come back to license your themes. And hopefully the answer to KarlTPB's question will be "yes, they will be kept available"

[audio-i]

I got an idea that I would like to check, because I'm of course very concerned about copyright infringements; honestly I don't see any issues in what I'm about to propose, but of course I'm no copyright expert at all. So here's the idea.

I also use a personal version of this theme. What I did was using the original graphics, but I completely rewrote the whole .wps code. If both files are compared, they have very little in common, basically forced by the use of viewports. Honestly I only used the original .wps code as reference for positioning. So what if I could upload to the wiki, where this theme is, the .cfg and .wps files I wrote. What people would have to do was downloading the original theme exactly as it is, and then replace those files with the ones I uploaded. Maybe I'm looking at it the wrong way, but regarding the perspective explained, isn't this sort of of like replacing a firmware? What do you guys think?


Part 2

To better simulate the tape's winding, I'm using two progress bars instead of one (one that "grows" on the left wheel during playback, and one that simultaneously "goes smaller" on the right wheel). For that I created, without using the original graphics, two progress bar images. Again, if you compare the files, they have very little in common (both are quite simple actually). And again, the only thing that would be necessary, is to download this two additional image files and put them in the appropiate folder.

[Chronon]

I can kind of see where you're coming from.  I think that in that case -- without packaging it with any of the original theme's resources -- what you're really publishing is kind of a generic theme that can be used with any images of the appropriate sizes.  If an end user privately opts to use the images from the published theme this doesn't seem to represent any wrongdoing on your part.

To make things even safer, you could publish your theme with its own dummy images of the right size and maybe just containing a label for what they are intended to represent.  Then you can post it as a separate theme and just point out that it's compatible with the images from this particular graveyard theme.  In this way your theme would be a fully functional (if bland) theme.

I am also not an expert in these matters and I do not wish to steer the project unduly into grey waters.  Any other thoughts about this?

[Llorean]

Well, the thing of it is...


If the author was just looking at a screenshot of the theme, and using that to design the new one's spacing etc it'd be much more clear (in my opinion).

As it is, the author was looking at the actual content of the .wps file. That more or less makes it a derivative work (it's part of why authors don't like to read submissions from fans, once you've seen an idea you can't unsee it, and it's why some companies avoid GPL code like the plague because if their devs read it, and code something similar using ideas they got from it there may be room to discuss the issue of derivative works.)

One thing I'd do, first, if I were you is go through the original author's message history here on the forums. I thought I remember him discussing the licensing on his themes once.

[Chronon]

Good point about this instance.  It doesn't sound like you have a problem with the general idea of simple themes that are reverse engineered to use similar image sizes and positions, provided the author of the new theme doesn't use an existing protected theme's code as a starting point.

--------

I did a quick search of his posts but couldn't find where he gave any such permission.  I have just tried to contact him on Orkut.

[audio-i]

@ Chronon & Llorean, thanks for the perspectives given.

I also find that this specific case can be seen as follows. It was said here that it’s OK to put instructions on how to fix a non working theme in the graveyards, avoiding to reproduce any of the original work. Since in this case I wrote all new .wps and .cfg files, the instructions to fix the theme would have to be “replace ALL lines with THESE new ones”; which is like replacing the whole .wps & .cfg files. These files and only this is what’s in the new zip file, that I uploaded to the wiki here. As I said before, I was using a modified version, that included changes like e.g the winding of one wheel, while the other simultaneously unwinds, using two progress bars, to better simulate the cassette tape’s behavior, but I even removed all those modifications to not alter the original graphics in any way.

Additionally to the people that already wrote in this topic about all this, there are some persons quite involved in theme licensing here (like Soap or BigBambi), so if they or any other person finds that there is a reason to remove the zip I uploaded, I’ll immediately remove it (I mean, to not even bother anybody to do that), just let me know.

I’m glad that the new uploading requirements will include proper theme licensing, that will avoid that these situations will happen again in the future. I’m also aware that the themes in the graveyards might be “erased” soon anyway; it is just that I personally believe that former efforts that added value to the project, all in their own measure and proportion, shouldn’t be wasted, so this is just something to try and preserve that.

[ZonderP]

Dear PHK Brasil!

Noe clue, if you're still around here on this forum, but if - please hear me begging!

I love this theme!
But now it doesn't work for me anymore.

Is there any chance you could dig it out of the graveyard by allowing redistribution under a CC license.

Please, please, please...