As I told the guys during tonight's nightflight, I'm attempting to modify the X hangar super cub to fly like the Carbon Cub, which is a newly manufactured version using carbon fiber and a 180hp engine. I know the terms and conditions say that I can't redistribute in whole or in part, but is there an easier way to send changes than writing a tutorial on performing the same conversion? Since .acf files are essentially just text I could theoretically do a diff and send that file as long as the .acf is all that's modified, but I'm not even sure if this would be allowed as it could be considered a "derivative work". 

tl;dr Is there an easier way to send changes to someone than simply creating a tutorial to perform the same changes?

Not sure this quite belongs in the aircraft category but this is where I'm putting it, so there.

Good morning sir.

Two queries - two quick answers

1. Sure, this might as well be the place for the question. No worries there

2. Nope.

Even plain text would be derivative in this case. At best, an author (which is what an acf developer would be considered by the copyright office if defending his/her intellectual rights) allows for small excerpts for critical review. That wouldn't work in this case for sharing, as you need far more than 'a paragraph' to have the model available.

Sorry pal (and for all of us who would like to try it out) but so far there are only 2 ways of doing this and remaining not only legal but moral.

1. In-depth tutorial.

2. Build it from scratch.

On point 2, I like the way gofigure resolved his quandary - building a basic shell craft with his misc. bodies containing his great skis so we can all see how to mod our payware Heinz DC-3s for skis without him sharing anything proprietary. Unfortunately, this wouldn't really work for you.

A video tutorial would probably be easiest, but man, that would still be one heck of a task. We may have to just ooohh and aaaahhh over any action vidz and specs you release and wish we were you

bc

Would it be possible to get permission for the re-distribute? Another quick though tthat occurs to me is to give them the original designer to use your mods (with attribution to you) as part of their release. Getting the original designer to distribute the mods has the benefit of putting your work in the easiest place to find it for the end user. Collaberative projects can work out better than stand alone ones if the parties are all in agreement. If the original designer is not into collaberations though, then it's back to the above answer from BC.

I figured. If I ever complete it I very well might see about contacting Gerald and maybe including the carbon cub as one more variant alongside the ski/tundra/etc. Or just figuring out a secure way to make it available, if he judged it worthy of course. 

This is what I hate about software licensing. There's always some odd use case where the license forbids it even though it's a perfectly reasonable and a good thing for the original product...

Well trepnick, if you were ever going to find a developer that is willing to consider something like you're talking about, it would be Gerald. I would definitely enter a conversation with him, were I you.

The thing I hate about software licensing is that we even have to do it. What a world it would be if we all just respected each others' rights and work and didn't need to protect it from misuse/abuse or outright theft. Someone like you would come along, let the author know what you're doing, and then allow all to have a go at it - as you say, benefitting everyone involved.

But alas, one need merely to look at the torrents to see why we end up with EULAs and the likes

bc