autoecart — Mon, 11 Sep 2006 05:35:28 +0000

If it will change the look of the template to the point where it would not look anything like the original than its probably fine.

helen313a — Tue, 05 Sep 2006 00:22:07 +0000

I think it is ok if you make big changes!

Helen,
webmaster of www.docredits.com

demonhale — Thu, 24 Aug 2006 00:54:02 +0000

Yeah, thats what got me confused. See there are those templates they bring to me that freely indicates reuse and whatever, and sometimes its a fairly easy design like a three-column layout I can do myself but the client insist on using the template to save time... they want it fast etc, and im not even using the graphics of the original template...

What I do now is indicate myself as the designer since I made a completely new look, and I add a credit area on the sidebar to the original template coder, but feel free to discuss more about this since its been a trend with new clients lately...

Megan — Wed, 23 Aug 2006 18:01:19 +0000

Oh, I guessed that might be it. If it's open source the lisence probably stipulates that any modifications must also be open source. The usage agreement there says that each submitted design has its own lisence agreement so check that if you can find it. It looks like they come with the download.

On the bottom of that site they have "This design by fs is Valid XHTML and CSS." You could have "This design by fs was modified by demonhale".

Just out of interest, I've downloaded a few to check any usage information. Only one out of 4 that I downloaded had anything and it just said "this template has been created for personal use only" which means it's not really open source...

(I think that site should have some more information about what open source actually means!)

timjpriebe — Wed, 23 Aug 2006 14:53:29 +0000

OSWD = Open Source Web Design.

Megan — Wed, 23 Aug 2006 12:44:59 +0000

What's oswd??

It would definitely not be okay to mark it as your own work when it's not. You could say that the design is based on the template and modified by you.