On Sun, 17 Sep 2000, Ryan S. Dancey wrote:
> > What Steffan is asking is that you let him know what you plan to do
> > with FUDGE if you are going to use it in a "Commercial Product".
>
> The reasons the restrictions are in the license are not important when
> determining if the license is Open or not. The fact that Stephen has not
> yet refused to grant a commercial license doese not mean that he would not
> at some point. As long as that clause remains in the FUDGE License, the
> FUDGE License will not be considered an Open Game License by the Foundation.
This one seems a bit odd to me. The standard FUDGE license
simply requires that you give away material under that license for free.
"Free Redistribution" is the #1 tenet of the definition of open
source, for example. (cf. http://www.opensource.org/osd.html ).
As open-source explains their reasoning for this tenet,
"By constraining the license to require free redistribution, we
eliminate the temptation to throw away many long-term gains in
order to make a few short-term sales dollars. If we didn't do
this, there would be lots of pressure for cooperators to defect."
Now, the open source definition does allow for open-source
products to be commercially sold -- but a license that requires the
works to be free doesn't seem to violate any of the tenets of
open source.
I realize that you (Ryan) have your own definition of "open
gaming" which you decide for yourself, but I think that FUDGE at least
deserves mention.
- John
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For more information, please link to www.opengamingfoundation.org
