From: "Brad Thompson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> > kevin kenan
> >
> > This would mean that if you are using a rule that is marked as OGC
> > in another work, you wouldn't have to mark it as such in your
> > work.
>
> I think that unless the prospective user had access to the original
> work (something that is far from guaranteed), you would have no way
> of knowing what was open and what was closed.
I disagree. Even with the change, a prospective user would essentially
be in the same situation as they are today: they can use any OGC from
another work, and the license itself defines OGC.
> It would be easier to tell for rules, but some people's idea of a
> rule is different than another's. Better to have the OGC marks
> persist through their derivatives.
The license defines OGC. Under the current license, if people disagree
about what a rule is, then we see discussions over what should be
marked as OGC. Whether the OGC marks persist through derivatives won't
change this.
Yes, the the current license makes it easier to tell what the
publisher of the material considers open. But that's all. Here are the
costs of the current wording:
1. It is easy to overlook the use of a rule embedded in the text
when you are marking OGC and each time such a mistake is
discovered, you must go back and re-do the entire physical
production of the work. This is expensive. After publishers are
burned by this a few times, they are likely to cease using OGC
material.
2. Works using OGC are going to look cluttered since every use of
"roll a d20" needs to be marked. A clean layout is important to
selling a book, and so OGL works will start from a graphic-
design disadvantage on the shelf.
3. Only a minority of a product's users actually care what material
is open, so the cluttered layout is irrelevant to most users and
irrelevant information leads to confusion.
The proposed wording change eliminates or minimizes these costs and
does so with very little downside.
-kenan
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