On Sat, Jan 27, 2001 at 10:16:43AM -0500, Morbus Iff wrote:
> Will the Open Gaming Movement Destroy Itself?
> http://www.gamegrene.com/rants/980547253.shtml
>
> "Open source software works because not everyone in the world can code
> software; you still, in the end, have raw consumers. But an open source
> game system is different, because anyone who can read and write can now
> design their own game system based off the core rules. And that dilutes the
> product. And that's not good."
The same fear has often been forwarded in the open source community: 'With
out any restrictions, how can we avoid project code forks?'
The answer turns out to be two synergistic effects. The first is
prestige and name recognition. Eric Raymond describes this effect
in his document 'Homesteading in the Noosphere'. Basically the result
is that even though code can fork, it only rarely does so since (1) the
prestige your position in the original project will be lost, and (2)
it will take a long time to build a following set of users for the new
project.
The second effect is competition/recombination. Under the right license,
(GPL for example) new creations have to be added to a system under the
same license that the whole system was received. This effect changes
the disadvantage of forking into a sort of advantage. Multiple competing
code paths can always borrow ideas back from the other code path, so
success is primarily dictated by how well each project understands the
needs of their users. If one branch really shouldn't exist, but has a
good idea that is missing from the mainline, it is easy to add it.
Branches that are unresponsive to user input become obsolete as new
communities form that are more responsive to input.
Basically the fear that is being stated by gamegrene is only a fear
of the unknown; and I say I've been there, and the world isn't nearly
a bleak as gamegrene makes it out.
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