Easier to ask forgiveness than permission

I would say host these until Ampolx tells you to take them down. His previous statement about someone uploading these is open to interpretation and can be taken both ways, to upload or not.

I agree with the above. I don't even care about these textures or if they are released really, but reading this thread makes me want to bang my head on my desk. The guy isn't coming back and doesn't give a damn what anyone does with them-- it's obvious. At most whoever uploads them will be asked to take them down, but if he doesn't even care to respond to PMs then he won't care to ask someone to take them down. Trust me, I'm in the same situation.

Re-Hosting other folks work without permission has also caused some problems, and prompted modders to pull all their work.....

Is there anything in any of his readme's about redistribution?

Nobody's got a right to Ampol's work or anybody else's. What's at issue here is civility and respect. I think it's just plain civil and respectful not to redristribute Ampol's work without explicit permission - which has not been given. You can argue about interpreting what's been said, but I think it's simplest and clearest just to realize that at no point has Ampol written to any person, "You have my permission to redristribute my mods." Without that, it's simply more polite not to do it.

You could argue that perhaps Ampol has been less than polite by taking away the mods and not bothering to set up a process for redistribution, but I say that one person being less polite does not excuse the rest of us. We should still be polite.

And, it's not Bethesda's rules that cause this situation. It's voluntary behavior by mod makers and users. The voluntary civility is what has encouraged and continues to encourage people to do great work at great effort for free and to share the fruits of that work with others. Without civility, there'd be a lot less mods.

I also have been mistaken in the past, thinking that because some mod maker has been absent for a few months, their work is now fair game. It turns out, in fact, that a lot of the best modders have had extended absences and then returned. Tejon takes extended breaks quite often. Francesco reared his head recently to graciously hand over handling of his mods to others. Now, in Francesco's case, people probably could have taken them over earlier without Francesco taking offense, but it was really neat to see how honored he was that nobody did. Being polite and respectful, even for so long, made Francesco really happy about the way he was treated. And, as a result, the turn over of his mods was very orderly and filled with mutual respect and admiration.

If we get no AmpolX mods, but we do get respect and civility and good feeling between people, I think we've done well.

Thank You for putting it so succinctly. This certainly bears repeating. And quoting.

+ 2 for civility. :thumbsup:

Even though I would like to see AmpolX's work in my game, I agree with gothemasticator and others who state that the modder's rights should be honored no matter what.

It also hasn't been that long. I remember the previous thread about alternatives to Qarl's and AmpoIX's textures got mentioned then. I responded and explicitly asked Amp to create a new thread and make an announcement when he re-released his work and he said he would. That was only last November or December. I wouldn't call that disappearing. So just be patient. It sounds like he's redoing the textures and that can take a while.

I think a thread of this nature has outlived its usefulness once people begin complaining that they feel "punished" for not having access to a mod. In the time that was spent arguing about whether it would be okay to redistribute an author's work without his/her explicit permission, you could have downloaded GIMP, read a tutorial, and attempted to learn to texture things yourselves.

Let's close this on a note of civility and common sense.