Well this was a interesting read, looks like mito contradicts himself a lot in regards to having made the icons and having rights to use them, personally I think this is all a bit silly and you (mito) should be happy people want to reproduce your set rather than being salty as you are about it, just means you made something people want so let them have it.
I'm figuring something out about Pulse since the community likes the set so much. After leaving the discussion yesterday and going to bed, I made some reflections about this entire situation. This is nothing but my genuine opinion about this big discussion and naturally not everyone will agree.
We have to face the reality, the truth and the bigger picture. The community grew much more than we could predict, there are new people coming in everyday. And even though I have a very rigid philosophy about materialism I can't force my own philosophy down people's throats. What philosophy do I have? Well I'm a very minimalist person, I only have one board, a set of PBT blanks and a pair of artisans that arrived in the mail yesterday. I love to visually appreciate things (I have a huge album with pictures of all of you guys' caps and boards) but I don't feel the need of possession in the slightest. I know how to appreciate without the need of possession.
With the huge income of new members, naturally many different philosophies will show up and another thing to be taken into consideration is that we can clearly see that the consensus is that one should not dictate what's available or not for people to buy. This may lead you to think that the premise of PuLSE having a single run was about exclusivity, and in retrospect we all know that I had this idea for a while. But the community grew and then it developed into keeping the creativity ball rolling offering new flavors, for the incoming different tastes. Perhaps due to the set's popularity, my decision of a single run is clearly falling apart.
Like you said, I made (with the help of many other members and Signsture Plastics) a very successful keyset that people love. It's colorway is original? Visually and generally speaking I don't think so, since cyan and black is everywhere. But I was the pioneer on applying such colors on SA, because I thought that combining a futuristic color scheme with a retro/vintage profile would be a good idea. Bear in mind that the only SA sets that existed by the time all featured a classic/straight look, like Penumbra and 7bits'. None of the currently existing SA sets were aggressive/swaggy/goofy like Pulse. This is not a backhanded insult like many elders like to say (if you read this Mr. Lake, Nubb and Co. I have the utmost respect for Penumbra and 7bits' as they are true legends in this community). Some people don't like Pulse, me included, but the vast majority of people love it and they want it.
Hell, what am I trying to do? Do I have strength to fight against the whole community and what they demand? Clearly not. I ain't no Signature Plastics, I ain't GMK and I am no JTK. I do not own the machines and I do not have the knowledge about how to manually bake a keyset. I do not own the machines and techniques to produce things, therefore I can't control it.
But I have a good idea and people like it, they would be happy if I developed it even further.
And at the end of the day people just want to have nice things.