>Still waiting for just one valid reason - other than a fetish for rules
(;>)
>why OGL is better for free products than the "online use policy"...
I can think of a few of reasons.
1) The OGL gives you access to all open material that is released under the
OGL. If you were to use OGL material without following the restrictions set
forth in the OGL, you can be sued. The fact that you are not getting paid
for something does not prevent it from being a copyright infringement, it
simply limits the amount of money that you can be sued for. Granted, the
amount of open material is not very impressive right now but it will be. As
more companies join the effort, which I believe they will, the amount of
material and the quality of the material available to those who use the OGL
will become quite tempting even for those who are producing free work.
2) Legitimacy. Anyone can produce material and put it up on a website under
the "online use policy", but professionals (and I mean the dictionary
definition of professional: "someone who is paid for his work") in the
industry are going to be using the OGL. Therefore it will be perceived as
being a more legitimate because of the quality of people using. Even
amateur work that is released as OGC will benefit from this perception.
3) WotC's "online use policy" only applies to WotC. Other companies may not
be as forgiving as WotC in their policies. But if they release OGC under
the OGL, you can gain the benefit of developing for those products or from
those products without threat of a lawsuit. Even if that company's products
are not OGC, you will probably (in the next couple of years) be able to find
something very close that is OGC and will provide the same or similar
rules, genre, etc.
Chris
www.IDrankWhat.org
www.coincidental.net
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