"nothing remains original"
As soon as you modify anything you can say it isn't original anymore. I think that as long as something can be recognized as someone elses work you'll need permission. I myself am in doubt very much about an author that ported and modded a sysmetrix theme I did (without permission. It is very much recognizable..and I do not really like that. However, don't know if there are "legal" grounds to do anything (if I would undertake any actions which I won't)

There you go beating me to the punch again, pinchecl.

That's the key, the 'not changing everything'.

Thank you Koasati. If you say it's ok then it must be.

I do the same. I have one skin where I got some obscure settings just right, and have made each new skin since then based on that one. I did start off with the luna skin, but it was a real pain getting everything the way I wanted it.

I don't see a problem using someone else's skin for a template - providing all the images are replaced.

 

I find it hard to be creative when I use my last skin as a template. I have trouble seeing it as a blank template. I have come to see the luna default as a blank piece of paper. Maybe that will eventually change for me if I use one of my older skins. Does this sound familiar to anyone?

Same here knatzz

I'll probably always see luna as a blank canvas too. And trying to use a different skin as a template would probably give me a headache I do re-use alot of my own older stuff. ex: Re-configuring titlebar buttons can be a pain adding rollups and such which I always do, so I just import the set from my last skin and replace the graphics and do any adjustments from there. I hate the naming scheme too farkusmarkus, but I do almost all of my images without even looking at the default so it doesn't bother me that much, I just save as I go using my own naming scheme. Then I save the skin under a different name and all the old luna images are gone.