At 9:36 -0600 2/17/04, Gillispie, Bryan W. wrote:
I don't think PIing anything that the OGL allows you to PI is anymore unethical than applying copyright or trademark protections to your work.
Whether something follows the spirit of the OGL or not is a philosophical question and not a legal one and your mileage will vary on the answer to that question. As designed the OGL allows for the PIing of just about anything.
A little bit inconsistent here: do you want to apply ethical or legal standards? You're right that PIing anything PIable is perfectly legal, just as the application of trademark and copyright and patent are. That's not to say that following the law is always ethical: what about the company that claims to own a patent for "streaming technology", but is only pursuing small companies, not Real Networks, Apple Computer, or Microsoft? From an ethical standpoint, if they truly believe they own this technology, they should be at least talking to all users of it, not just those they can easily bully. Or, what about patents on human genetic alterations? Those are, apparently, legal (well, until challenged in court), but it's not at all clear-cut that they are ethical. In the realm of trademark, i don't see how it's ethical, after all these years, for WotC to claim "Player's Handbook" as a trademark, even if it should turn out to be legal. Disney and the RIAA have made ethically-questionable but probably-legal claims in the realm of copyright. And so on.
...and don't be one of "those who would reuse OGC"--there's not a whole lot of OGC floating around out there outside of the sphere of influence of the WotC OGL. That's precisely why these conflicts arise: the group of people who either believe in open-content development as an ideal, and/or want to use the D20 System, is larger than the group that is 100% satisfied with the WotC OGL.If those who would reuse OGC don't like the way the OGL is designed then don't use it.
-- woodelf <*> [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://webpages.charter.net/woodelph/
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