Statement regarding the new license regulations As I wrote earlier today on the official forum we hereby publish a statement explaing the new license regulations. At first I did not want to explain any of the accusations people raised in the official forum's thread. I noticed a very astonishing mood among individuals there that surely call themselves part of 'the' community: Noone even bothered to ask for the reasons of the new license regulations except Lenny doing so via PM. I will not comment on this one as the reasons have been explained in detail to people being interested in them and as one of the reasons has to do with the behaviour of one of the the OFP-Newspages I will not start any kind of flame-war here or anywhere else! One reason was the discovery that an addon-maker copied parts from one of our addons. I called a popular OFP-Newspage that hosted this particular stolen addon. I was asked by one of their members if the addon shall be deleted. As this is a serious task I answered that this issue should be discussed among the staff people. Later on I asked the leader what he will do regarding that particular issue. I got the answer that it would not make sense to delete that addon as some weeks had passed since the release of that addon. The conclusion of this all for me is that I will not support people who know that they offer stolen addons on their homepage! People going polemic are surely not interested in any kind of serious discussion! I could point to the nicknames they use in the official forum, but would that change their mood? Probably not. It would only pour more oil into the fire. The other people there running wild because they show a I-have-no-time-to-read-readmes attitude disqualified themselves. The readme says: "You need permission". Why don't they ask for permission? Is that such a big deal? Either they do not read readmes or they did ignore them. Which one is a better choice? The only excuse someone could mention is the use of the English language he/she does not understand. But that cannot be stated by people hanging around there. The other way round: is everthing allowed if it's not forbidden? Am I allowed to copy parts of a model or texture in my own model and not asking for permission because the author of that addon didn't abuse such a behaviour explicitely? The community surely would like to tar and feather these people. I have to admit that this is an uncommon rule, but I explained what led to the decision. In my opinion it is not as drastic as other rules imposed on the "end-consumer". You may link to our download page, you may also link to the file directly, you may include the addon in one of your own addons. But ask for permission prior to linking, copying, redistributing. All our addons are free for download to everybody - noone is left behind! You need not to register to download them. We give support as much as possible on our forum. We try to improve a game we all still enjoy, we support the community with addons, but we do not support theft! The only thing I ask for in the readme is to ask for permission if you want to upload or change it in any way. Please act accordingly. I see Pappy Boyingtons fear, but be assured that the day I don't play OPF anymore I'll upload all my addons with MLODs and will declare them as freeware, not public domain though. If there is no BIS-forum anymore that day, then I can be sure noone will be interested in the files anyway. On the other hand the readme (why do I write them if noone reads them?) clearly tells you that whenever you need MLODs of any file(s) or textures done by us you can contact us via eMail or on our forum to get permission to use them. The rules I would insist on are VERY easy: - no commercial use - no professional use - give credits in a readme to Team Yankee Am I asking for too much? Well, if that's the point you are still allowed to download O2 and do it by yourself. Hope I made myself clear even if I know that those polemical people won't understand it because they have to defend their pre-made opinion at all costs. Thanks for your patience, Arne Updated  Monday, November 14, 2005    Written by Arne    641  reads