Gnome shell theme piracy

[cortman]

I'm designing a theme for my Gnome shell. It's a sort of earth-tone, minimalist theme that I have not found yet on Gnome look. Since I'm not very knowledgeable about shell theming, I just copied the .themes/ folder of my existing "MetalX" theme (that I like a lot) and am just working off its CSS sheet, so I don't have to start from scratch. Pretty much all I'm changing are colors, perhaps a font or two, size of panel, corner image and maybe one or two other images. My question is, if I would want to share the theme, how much do I have to change it to make it "mine"- or should I have started from scratch? I really don't want to rip off the great guys who designed MetalX, so how should I share this? (if I decide to)

[Krytarik]

My question is, if I would want to share the theme, how much do I have to change it to make it "mine"- or should I have started from scratch? I really don't want to rip off the great guys who designed MetalX, so how should I share this?
If you are meaning this theme:

http://justviper.deviantart.com/art/Metal-X-gnome-3-2-compatible-256652412?

..., it's licensed under the GPL, so you can do as much or as less to it as you want, as long as you re-publish it under the GPL as well; and, although not stipulated by the GPL (http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.html), it's decent behavior, and common practice, to credit the original author/s of the concerning work, regardless of the used license, at least in the theming area.

Regards.

[cortman]

Thanks for the advice! I will definitely be crediting the original authors.