From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of Beren
Sent: Saturday, September 16, 2000 8:53 PM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: [Open_Gaming] Plain English?
<< Maybe it's because I've still got pregnancy hormones floating around
in my brain >>
First of all: congratulations! Always good to know we have a new gamer!
(Tip: although most dice are too small for small children, I have seen some
d6's that are about three inches across. Darn hard to swallow. And my niece
and nephew loved them, because they could then roll dice just like their
parents. Start 'em early!)
<< but Mr. Dancey, would it be possible to post a "Plain
English" version of the OGL to the list? I know what's confusing me
(and probably many others) is the legalese. >>
I understand your request. At the same time, I'm not sure it's practical.
Like mathematics, music notation, and game rules, legalese is a technically
precise way to state technically precise concepts in a way that technical
practitioners can (hopefully) all undrstand in precisely the same way.
(Don't laugh, Clark.) And just as you can express math or music in Plain
English, you can express legalese in Plain English, too. And you often lose
just as much meaning in the translation. A Plain English version might SEEM
a lot clearer, but might actually mislead readers into interpretations that
are just not what the legalese really means.
This is further complicated by the fact that, unlike math (but a lot like
music, really), the meanings of the legalese are VERY dependent on the
reader in at least some circumstances. So ideally, you want a Plain English
version interpreted from the perspective of your own interests. That's one
of my most common uses for an attorney: explaining what a legal document
means TO ME. Unfortunately, for most of us the OGL is not worth the cost of
an attorney's time to interpret it. So we can't afford to get our own
personal Plain English versions.
Furthermore -- and I'll bet this is a real stickler -- the Plain English
version would not be legally binding. Only the legalese is. So a Plain
English version that somehow misleads will actually get people into trouble.
"Well, it says here that..." "Sorry, but that's not the license. That's one
person's interpretation of the license." So I imagine Ryan is reluctant to
put out such a document: misleading someone in this fashion would trouble
him greatly. He has done the next best thing: his Q&A tries to answer common
questions about the license, while clearly being no sort of license by
itself. Yet even there, people are zeroing in on places where his Q&A
appears to conflict with the license; and they rightfully point out that the
license is binding, while the Q&A is not.
What I would like to see would be for some lawyer -- preferably an IP type,
but not one connected with Wizards or the OGF -- to decide to do an analysis
of the OGL and publish it. To the OGF web site, if nowhere else. This would
be a layman's article on what OGL means, and would be a nicely independent
Plain English interpretation. Yet it would be very unlikely to mislead
anyone as a license itself, since it would be clearly NOT from the
creators/owners of the OGL. Of course, attorneys like to get paid for such
efforts, so I'm not holding my breath.
Martin L. Shoemaker
Emerald Software, Inc. -- Custom Software and UML Training
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
www.EmeraldSoftwareInc.com
www.UMLBootCamp.com
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