On Fri, 11 Aug 2000, Corey Reid wrote:
> I don't quite understand your question, Kal. "People who haven't even said
> what contributions they will make" -- are you contrasting these people with
> WotC and saying that they(WotC) have said they will contribute the SRD, etc.
Yes. I am admitting WotC is in a special position and deserve
special consideration. I'm not in love with this suggestion
but it is worth exploring: only give the extra trademark protections
to WotC under the OGL.
> That sentence (mine, I mean) needs to be a bit more obtuse, I think. Forgive
> my convoluted grammar -- I hope you can make out what I meant. What I mean
> is, are you suggesting that people should have to state their intentions
> before receiving these trademark protections? That sounds very complex and
> hard to administrate.
No, that would be too complex as you point out. I suggest the any
new clause for extra trademark protections should only be granted
to WotC. The rest of the people (trademark holders and non-trademark
holders) should be treated equally by the OGL.
> But why shouldn't I be entitled to the same protection? What about me makes
> me less deserving than WotC? I'm not offended at all, just wondering what
> criteria we could use to make this sort of distinction and how that would
> benefit people.
Because WotC is making the big contribution that all of us will
benefit from. The rest of us will make contributions but not
nearly as important as that of WotC's (for the conceivable future).
> You also commented on trademark owners not wanting to leak any content into
> OGL.
>
> My interest in the OGL is primarily in the way it makes game mechanisms
> available to anyone. Not in the way it allows people to collaborate on
> settings. I have NO interest in making my "content" (meaning my settings and
> characters and plots) open. I am interested in opening up rules and systems
> and seeing if people grab on and improve them or adapt them.
>
> Which is perhaps why we're not seeing eye-to-eye on this trademark issue. I
> get the impression that you're more interested in the idea of open content
> and people contributing to a game environment -- writing modules, campaign
> books and so on. Which has much bigger trademark risks, I'll grant you.
Excellent observation.
> But I don't think that WotC wants people writing Greyhawk adventures or Dark
> Sun modules. They want to have control over what goes on in those kinds of
> settings. I'm not saying that you want to do that, just pointing out that
> open content (as opposed to open rules) is not what (IMO) the OGL is
> supposed to provide.
I hope that open content will be a part of the open gaming community.
It could be WotC donating a setting or a company like Dominion Games
or an individual donating a module. I had certainly been under the
impression that some people, including myself, were hoping to
contribute open content (monsters, magic items, story elements)
and that we would be well served by the OGL. The trademark holders
say "don't reference our trademarks and the new clause won't affect
you." But they do not promise to not place their trademarks along
side our open content making a combination that they can reference
but we can't.
Regards,
--Kal
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