Zodiaq, in the case of Winstyles, the short answer is depends. Here's my understanding of permissions and Winstyles (and I could be wrong)
Winstyle themes come in two formats: an xptheme file (which is really a zip of all the skins), and a suite file, which is just an empty file that contains the URLs to the online skins.
In the former case, no matter what, permission is definitely required since the skins are being redistributed.
In the latter case, technically permission is not required as its really not much more than the equivlaent of posting a screenshot along with a description of where to find the various skins. It just sort of formalizes and automates the process.
That said there are probably some guidelines that should be considered (and these are my own thoughts, so take them with a grain of salt
)
In the case of suite file that contains refernces (and I emphasise refrences, not the actual skins as an xptheme file) to skins from various authors (say an essorant WB, a White_Moth wall, a snowman winamp skin) I don't see the need to seek permission.
If, however, some guy puts together a suite file that is used to reference all the parts of paricular skin theme (such as yours, Zodiac), then two things should occur:
1. As a courtesy, permission should be asked of the author. After all, the suite file that contains only references to a paricular theme sort of has the air of "officialness" about it: something that the original theme author would have most likely done.
2. If the guy is going to go ahead and put together a .suite file of your stuff, he should not name it the same name as your theme, aka "BP-XPG". Again, this has the air of "officialness" about it. What if you wanted to create your own official "BP-XPG" winstyles suite file. Instead, the guy should give it another name like "Fred's Tribute to BP-XPG" or something.
Anyways, that's the see it
