-----Original Message-----
From: kevin kenan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>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.
There are ways around this. You can always identify the OGC without the use
effecting the layout of of a product by using plain english in the
identification area. Even if you are using font changes and/or different
colored backgrounds to indicate OGC, I really don't see this as a big deal.
Computer-related publications typically use different fonts and blocks of
text with darker background to define different types of content (code
examples, sample output, style suggestions, etc.).
> 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.
I can't think of many situations where it would be necessary to specifically
tell the reader to "roll a d20" that would not already be included within a
block of text that would be considered OGC. Simply specifying a monster's
AC or listing a DC implies a d20 roll, where the AC or DC listing would be
marked as OGC (assuming you are using that method to identifying OGC).
> 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.
As I have stated before, I disagree with this line of thought. I see every
person who uses an OGL product is a potential OGL Developer and I think OGL
products should take this into consideration. It doesn't matter if most
people aren't going to care about the distinction between OGC, the
distinction exists for those who do care. If you limit the usefulness of
your product to OGL developers, they will stop finding it useful and may not
even bother with the OGL at all.
>The proposed wording change eliminates or minimizes these costs and
>does so with very little downside.
I agree that it adds very little of a downside from a publishing standpoint,
but from a development standpoint it creates ambiguity and confusion which
can only be eliminated by the developer wasting valuable time (and possibly
money) in needless research.
However I could see a change that didn't require you to indicate OGC derived
from an existing OGL Standard Resource Documents as being much less
problematic since anyone who will be doing serious development under the OGL
would only benefit from having detailed knowledge of such SRDs. Everyone
would have access to the SRDs and detailed knowledge of the OGC covered by
them. Of course I'm not just talking about the D20SRD, but any other SRD
that is released under the OGL.
Chris
www.IDrankWhat.org
www.coincidental.net
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