"Alexander P. Macris" wrote:
> Anyway, I'm an Objectivist/Libertarian, and my law school classmates would
> laugh their butts off to hear the "bloodsucking right-winger" Alex Macris
> referred to as a member of the People's Republic. But I'm glad you thought
> that from the website. Successful market positioning. :)
Hrm. All the Obj/Libs I know (self included) are opposed to things like
generic drug laws and anti-trust suits. Now, I suppose it's quite
possible to favor open source by CHOICE, so long as it's not imposed by
law -- indeed, ESR opposes both MS and the DOJ.
But that's irrelevant.
Fact is, I agree with your goals -- I'm a firm believer in direct
producer->consumer distribution, death to the middlemen, etc -- but
those middlemen services evolved for reasons, and any new distribution
model must provide the same services. In the case of the PHB, WOTC, due
to its size, can offer:
a)Low cost
b)High quality production
c)High quality content
The D20 SRD will give you some reasonable (but currently indeterminate)
%age of 'c' gratis. Beyond that, you've got a lot of work to do, and I
think doing that work just to duplicate an existing work which almost
all your potential customers already own is simply a wasted effort,
unless you really can produce a work of the same quality for
SIGNIFICANTLY lower price -- 10 dollars or so. If all you're going for
is online distribution, you might be able to pull it off, but I'm still
not sure where the value is -- what will you give me for my ten dollars
when I've already spent 20 on the PHB?
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