> it's never a question of getting everything done the > way you'd like. > It's only a matter of figuring out what you can > leave as less than > you'd like, because you _must_.
That is the truth. And, frankly, some of the "legal stuff" is the last to get done and the most rushed. Your point is excellent: very rarely do you have the time and luxury to do things 100% how you would like them. You go with 90% and hope that is good enough. > One of the things > that's not immediately obvious is precisely how > contentious and > bickering it is. There is some bickering, that's true. Most everyone tries to get along. But there are, as I understand, various hard feelings here or there over past products or prior dealings or from events at prior employment, etc. But it isnt as contentious as you paint it. > seen the cycle go by a bunch of times, and have > attitudes that would > seem cynical to people newer to the fray but are > regrettably well > anchored in a pragmatic assessment of the realities. Another good point. d20 seems great and all important to this list, but many people have seen things come and go. You dont just latch on to the currnent new thing in any business and forgo your other options. Yes, they may be more cynical about d20 than us. > Note that none of these folks has found it > worthwhile to standardize an > open-content declaration for all of their products > within a single > company. They're all experimenting, evolving > variations in response to > the reactions past efforts got, and tweaking for all > kinds of reasons. Another good point. This is very true. I change my designations all the time. I keep thinking up new ways to do things. And I try them. Sometimes, months later, I look back and say "what was i thinking?" some stuff I say "yeah, i did that right." and there is no attempt to standardize things even among Sword & Sorcery companies. I do stuff my way. Monte does stuff his way. The SS guys do their thing. > If the folks who have most interest in such things > haven't converged on > anything like a single usage or even two or three > most common usages, > that strongly suggests that there is no obvious > commercial advantage to > any one particular interpretation, and therefore > little reason to > surrender one's own judgment to someone else just > because they find > another approach more aesthetically pleasing or > whatever. I agree with this point, but I am not sure it follows from the prior one. We may all designate differently and do our notices and things differently, but there is general agreement on OGC and PI and how they are used and that the license as is is perfectly workable. I wouldnt use the fact that we may all designate things differently as an example that we disagree on usage. I think there is more agreement than disagreement on usage. There are different ways to do designations, but agreement on usage in general seems pretty standard. > Note too that, to put it mildly, these folks aren't > all best buddies, > nor do they have general philosophies of the > relationship between their > work and that of other OGL creators anywhere very > close to each other. Believe me, if there was some need to standardize this amongst the "big kids" it would get done IMHO. Despite differences, if there was a big problem, the industry is small enough that a few phone calls could get things resolved. That hasnt happened because there is no need for it. All of the people who actually publish as a business use the license similarly. You might not agree with their designations. > It is possible to get antagonists together and get > them to agree to a > single standard even though it's not in anyone's > obvious interest to do > so. But it's hard. And precisely because all these > folks have seen time > and effort gone down the hole of doomed effort, I > strongly suspect that > many or even most of them would simply decline to > try. Again, I think the problem is there is little that actually needs resolving. If there was, we would resolve it. I just got an email from Chris at GR, for example. Believe me, it would not be hard to get Chris from GR and John from Atlas and Steve Wieck and the Mongoose guys and Zinzer from AEG and Monte and others to talk on the phone and hammer out issues. There just is nothing that needs global resolution like that. I dont think it is that people have seen collaborative projects fall apart (which certainly they have), it is just that there is nothing that needs a global solution. > An effective pitch would have to do all of the > following: > > 1. Offer an informed explanation of why it wouldn't > turn into a time > sink ... > 2. Offer a clear and simple explanation of the > commercial advantage... > 3. Offer an equally clear and simple explanation of > who would be > dealing with existing antagonisms... Not a bad concept, but again, this isnt really the problem. The real problem is that usually the pitch man for some "universal" resolution of things usually (1) has some agenda, (2) is not an actual publisher and is busy focusing on goofy hypothetical problems that dont affect actual use of the license in any serious way, (3) lacks serious credibility as the leader of the project (goes hand in hand with 2), (4) has no business vision, (5) hasnt demonstrated an ability to get the project done, and (6) has sort of an "anti-big guy" fringe bias. Plus, lets not forget that some "slop" in a license is good. This is not a perfect world. While I appreciate that everyone wants to nail everything down, there is some value to having a little "play in the line" if you will. Clark ===== http://www.necromancergames.com "3rd Edition Rules, 1st Edition Feel" _______________________________________________ Ogf-l mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.opengamingfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/ogf-l
