@Mid: Yes your right, I might have to specify or backtrack a little. If you publish under a CC license and use the SA bit then to do so you would need to have permission from all the sources of image that you used to make up your final that this final including the sources are going to be shared downwards in a CC share alike manner. Therefore, if done legally, the sources must have been given that permission and is therefore open source.

But yes, without SA you are right CC without it is not so different from full copyright - esp CC with ND. So I was referring to the SA bit really but I take your point tho.

I really think that CGTextures will affirm that they will not license it under CC SA even if the texture cannot be extracted as a stand alone image even if, as I am also convinced, that is the intention of the author. The issue is legal mines that he cant be bothered to tread over. I just expect him to point or quote the existing text and link to the FAQ.

I think his site should make it a little clearer about this point tho - it took me months of using them before I realized this.