*sighs*
Here's the thing: I know exactly where you're coming from. Lawyers and legalese are very very annoying and normally I might agree with you about getting a lawyer. Here's the thing, at the back of the OGL there is a nice little Q & A section that spells out the intent of the document fairly clearly I think BUT (and it's a big one) I've still seen people come onto this list (I've been on it for a good 5 or 6 months now I think) who still manage to come on here and get the entire thing totally screwed up. So screwed up in fact that if was Wizards (or any company using the liscence as it effects them too) I would be sewing very fast for completely impinging upon my livelyhood.
On the other side of the coin: Take a look at the top of the SRD. "THIS MATERIAL HAS NOT BEEN RELEASED USING THE OPEN GAMING LICENSE" which means that the only thing out there that is actually OGL material is a number of 3rd party works that under good faith have put out this stuff. Much of it being based directly off the SRD material. What does this mean? If Wizards suddenly decided to drop the whole thing every single person with some stuff from the SRD would be in a nice bit of breach for using already copyrighted material. If I was any of these people I'd be more than a little worried about that and my hats off to them for braving the waters.
I think everyone else has done an outstanding job of explaining the reasons why we need legalese so I'll just stop here and say, yes get a lawyer.
One final thing though. Releasing something under the OGL is a whole lot more safe than releasing something under the D20STL. When using the OGL you can pretty much change things around any way you want, including putting in stuff about character creation and the like. Releasing something under the D20STL requires using the OGL, making sure at least 5% of what you release is open content and on top of that, making sure that you don't involve anything to do with character generation or advancement nor change any of a sizable list of defined terms.
Happy Gaming
-Bill (Who thanks but does not envy the forrunners of this movement)
|-----Original Message-----
|From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
|Sent: Thursday, March 29, 2001 4:29 PM
|To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
|Subject: [Open_Gaming] Plain Engrish License
|
|
|It's a new, and I think long overdue, trend in law to cut the
|crap and write
|in plain English. As I read this list, more and more folks
|are saying "If
|you're thinking of working with the OGL license, consult a lawyer.", to
|which I have much to say, considering that the abolition of
|the lawyer class
|in America would be a plus in my book. Not to point fingers
|and heckle, but
|is everyone on this list so concerned about being sued by
|using the OGL or
|d20? Is this the sort of environment that we are fostering
|with the open
|gaming movement? "Open Your Games but Watch Your Ass?"
|
|For every person that wanders into this list and is told "see
|a lawyer", I
|have a better suggestion: maybe we should have an OGL written
|so that people
|can frickin' understand the thing, instead of this host of
|priests whose job
|it is to interpret the thing like chicken entrails. For every
|sentence that
|includes "hereafter referred to as Fargle Bargleglarg", I cringe.
|
|Kuma
|
|(Do Not Feed The Lawyers)
|-------------
|For more information, please link to www.opengamingfoundation.org
|
