From: "woodelf" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>I'd think there'd be room for "yes, i know they *intended* the license to mean that, but it *doesn't*--i followed the letter of the license perfectly, and don't feel their interpretation is legally correct." But, IANAL, so, who knows?Who does the court side with? Does it change if B is perfectly aware that the "intended" meaning is Y, but chooses to abide by the actual meaning X?
From what little I've seen they tend to side with "mutual understanding." If both parties are perfectly aware of what the other means in a particular clause then they would be decided against if they went and did something different. Since Wizards has gone and published a whole document saying, "this is what we mean," I think in this case you would have to show that you were somehow entirely unaware of the FAQs and other things on the Wizards site. Of course, I could be totally wrong, too. Shrug.
Also, aren't some of the opinions around here *not* incorporated into the FAQs, even though they have essentially as much authority (having come from either legal analysis, or the person originally behind the license, who should know the intent better than anyone): Frex, that "no character creation" doesn't just apply to D20 rules (Ryan), but "no character advancement" only applies to leveling in the D&D3E manner (WotC rep.). That the PI list is exemplary, while the OGC list is exhaustive--or are they both most-likely exemplary?--i forget. [See, i can't even keep track of what the license supposedly means, because there are so many vagueries in the license.] Or exactly how PI behaves.
Despite my question starting this thread, the FAQs don't cause much of a problem--most of the iffy interpretations of the license either have been stated by WotC in other ways, that someone could quite easily not be aware of (and shouldn't be expected to be aware of), or come from our discussions here and don't have anything to do with WotC, one way or teh other. Nonetheless, the general point stands: i wonder if their is legal obligation to abide by the other party's interpretation, even if you are aware of it, if that interpretation is at odds with the contract itself (and i suppose i should add: and may or may not be formally stated in even non-legal ways)?
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woodelf <*>
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The avalanche has already begun. It is too late for the pebbles to vote. -- Kosh _______________________________________________ Ogf-l mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.opengamingfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/ogf-l
