Darmuh

but you're having a good point, it's best to ask for permission in other cases

@BraXi yeah I know all about open source and licencing. I work on and with a few open sourced projects. The general rule with open source is you follow and rules and licencing that comes with the project. If it doesn't come with a licence then you can use it freely. If cod was open source and the mods where do then that would be very different. A good example of mods being open source is any minecraft mods that have Open sourced the code. It's all very officially and handled correctly. If cod was like that then this issue wouldn't exist. You yourself have made a eat step towards try open sourced collaboration but open sourcing your mod. The codx guys although being pricks have also helped this by making there work open sourced. When code is not shown to be open sourced and has been packed up in something. Then I would have to argue that it's closed source and you must get written permission to use the code and if you don't get it then you leave it. The more mods we can open source the better. I know a lot of people who could maintain mods but can't because it's closed source. 

" If it doesn't come with a licence then you can use it freely. " you understand it wrong, in case there's no license you're obligated to contact the author before making use or doing modifications to his work unless stated otherwise.