This is more or less taking advantage of a loophole and also makes installing mods that may try to take this approach need too much effort to install. Not to mention it blatantly disregards the wishes of the author whose assets you're essentially trying to acquire. I am aware of the history behind the author of IR3, but that does not mean it is fine to ignore licensing nor the wishes of the author. In my opinion, this is something that should not be encouraged, I'd rather not see mods require assembly more than just downloading and installing mods through Factorio itself. While this technically does not break any rules to my knowledge, it's still something I see as rather blatant disregard to licensing and am worried about what kind of standard this could set should it be encouraged.

I thank you for your input, it is worth considering. I do not know the author, or why he chose the particular license. I do not agree with your assessment that this mod is a "blatant disregard to licensing". It does not infringe on the license, to the contrary, it respects and honors it.

I like the mod, thanks

Thank you CarlosTorch, I do plan to do more, probably furnaces next.

@amHunter
I do thank you for your concern in this matter. But I would like to assure you that this mod and others I may add, do not infringe on the copyright.
This mod does not contain any code or graphics from IR3 or the asset packs. There is nothing incorrect about a user installing the IR3 mod packs and modifying the info.json, this is perfectly in line with the license. This mod then uses the Factorio API to access those graphical assets, again perfectly in line with the license. Nothing is being redistributed, nothing is against the words or spirit of the license.

Now, does the author desire his work to be used in Factorio 2.0? That is a very different question, he may or may not. Could he update and repackage the asset packs in a way that would prevent this mod from using them, yes he could. A perfect example is his add-on mod, Airships.