>From: Lizard <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>
>Faustus von Goethe wrote:
>
> > I continue to stand by my statement:
> > "A D&D fan who wishes to distribute not-for-profit material is much
>better
> > served by using the "Online Use Policy" than they are using the OGL."
> >
>Unless he wishes to use other people's OGL material. This is the point
>you keep dodging -- the value of the OGL is in the (presumed) library of
>material to be released under it. At the moment, this value is
>relatively nill. A year from now...
Not really dodging this point. I am tackling it full on and refuting it, on
the basis of three very valid (I believe indisputable) suppositions:
1. (as you say) *At this time* there is very little (none) of OGL content
that is valuable to the FAN developer.
2. In the future, there will be very little OGL'd (in the D&D realm) that
has not *already* been "Netbooked* by the time it makes it into OGL.
3. Now and in the future, the bulk of FAN resources upon which a FAN
developer could draw will FAR OUTWEIGH anything that will be available to
the OGL developer.
In short, I think (believe strongly, actually) that a developer that is
making a FAN work and does not want to SELL will have a tremendously LARGER
body of work to draw from OTHER FAN SITES that say their stuff can be "used
but not sold" (a source that is CLOSED to OGL developers) than they EVER
WILL from OGL material.
However, YOU are dodging the point that the OGL developer *WILL NOT* be able
to take advantage of the HUGE amount of fan work that will (without
question) be available for the FAN developer.
>I know that if I saw anything I might choose to release under OGL in a
>netbook that was not OGLed, I'd be peeved. I suspect that if John Tynes
>saw the OGLed monsters from 3D2AK in "Joe Fanboy's Book Of K3wl Stuph"
>(a non-OGL compilation), he'd be also peeved -- and he might cast Lawyer
>Summoning I. And I'm virtually certain that if anything WOTC released
>under the OGL found its' way to a non-OGL document, they'd cast Lord
>High Lawyer Summoning True. (For you RM fans...)
I'm not referring to FAN's using OGL'd material. I'm referring to FANS
using each others' material.
I'm saying (and still continuing to maintain) that, for fans, the OGL'd
material will be essentially irrelevant.
So for "objections" we currently have:
1. "I just like taking on additional unnecessary requirements."
2. (25%) "Using the 'online usage policy' is unethical."
Three more like #2 and we will have a complete objection (althought with
some of the "backlash" I have heard to the #2 statement, I might withdraw my
support for it later (;>)
Faust
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