Quote
Originally posted by LifeKnight:
He can use my ideas, as long as he credits me and uploads them to the addons page
An idea is simply that: an idea. Giving credit to an idea is, while nice, not in any way necessary.
Why? Because how do you know that he hadn't come up with the same, or similar, idea by himself?
Besides which it is one thing to say, "Hey, I have an idea. How about a fireball spell?" And another thing to actually figure out how, codewise, it would work and then make it work.
Intellectual property is much more than, "I could make this... hey, I just thought of an idea so now no one else can use it! It is all mine!" That's just bogus.
Now, if you sat down, figured out everything on how something will work, and then shared it with a developer who wished to use it, then you might have a case. But in a thread where the developer is asking for ideas to use in his own plug-in, you are simply brainstorming. The ideas you come up with he will then need to deconstruct and build himself. Credit is unnecessary unless he chooses to be gracious.
To use an example, when I was creating Spells Expander I was talking with many people. Some I received tangible products from, like straytoaster who came up with the concept of the timer code and I altered and tweaked to fit my needs. I used code that he had developed so regardless of how much I altered and changed his code I still needed to credit him.
However there were people that gave me ideas for spells, quest ideas, etc. These needed not be credited, and weren't, because I still had to flesh them out myself. Many of them I had already come up with but was letting them simmer in my mind as I worked out how they would work.
If you are really interested in keeping an idea soley in your possession, the best way to do that is to not share it. Otherwise share your ideas and be happy that they are included when a new game is released. You know you had input on it; more credit than that, for a simple idea, is not needed.
My 2 cents.
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