>>related note: i was -->this<-- close to buying the first Diomin book.
>>then i noticed the section on designation of OGC, and looked through
>>the book and discovered how much of the book wasn't OGC. i put it
>>back. now, i'll be perfectly honest: this is a completely
>>irrational .....<snip>
>>but i can say that i'm pretty much certain that, if it had been 100%
>>closed, i wouldn't have been disappointed. it's only because it
>>labels itself as an "open" work (released under the WOGL), but then
>>turned out to be just barely Open, that i was disappointed. <snip>
>
>I'm confused. Were you unhappy that the entire book wasn't OGC,
>rules or not? I can't think of one d20 book out that has OGCed the
>entire book. From what I remember of Diomin, all the rules
>information was OGC.
that's exactly my complaint: it's released under an "Open Game"
license, yet almost none of it was open content--just the chapter on
shamans, and about 2 lines of text for each race (IIRC). so, yes, i
was disappointed that most, if not all, of it wasn't open content.
(part of this probably stems from the fact that it was the first D20
product i saw, and therefore my only preconceived notions of what an
"open game" should look like come from works like "The Cathedral and
the Bazaar", the various GNU licenses, copyleft, and Linux.) i was
hoping/expecting that the PI clause of the WOGL would be used only to
close key, probably trademark-able, proper nouns within a work, if
even that.
misleading advertising/labeling is one of my hot buttons. if you
claim to be/represent/use one thing, i expect you to be/represent/use
that thing. it doesn't matter to me half so much what that thing is,
as that you're honest about it. i'd rather eat a hot dog that says
"Made With Crap We Scraped Off the Slaughterhouse Floor" and is 5%
"real meat" than one that says "Made With Real Beef" and is really
just 50% real meat. [ok, maybe not. i got a little carried away in
the analogy. try this one, instead: i'm happier when paper is
labeled "50% Recycled/20% Post-consumer" than "Recycled" (assuming
they're both the same paper), because the latter implies that it's
100% recycled, by not specifying.] so when a game says "Released
Under the Open Game License" (or words to that effect), i'll be more
upset at any closed content within it than i would be if the whole
thing were closed, but it made no claim to open-ness. now, as i said
the first time, my real beef is with the WOGL itself, for using the
name "Open Game License" for a license that enables you to not only
keep content closed, but may even close material that, in the absence
of the license, would not be ownable. if it were called the "Mixed
Open and Proprietary Game License" or the "License to Sanction
Mechanical Proliferation" or the "Semi-open Game License" or
something else that accurately and specifically described its nature,
i'd have no complaints whatsoever. i understand the desire to only
release key portions of your intellectual property. i see no shame
in that. i only ask that you be honest as to what you are doing, and
use labels that not only are true, but not misleading.
think of it like this: if i offered you "orange juice" wouldn't you
be disappointed if i actually gave you orange-flavored drink
("contains 2% juice")? wouldn't you expect that something labeled
"orange juice" be 100% juice, unless you were told otherwise? i
think that something labeled an "open game" (and anything distributed
under the "Open Game License" certainly is implied to be an open
game) should be 100% open, unless otherwise labeled.
finally, IMHO, the point of open content development is the
synergetic potential, and that's not there if the work isn't open.
so the WOGL may promote that synergy in rules (in the fairly narrow
sense), but if the current trends continue it won't have any such
effect in the realm of settings and general themes, nor of bits that
entwine rules and setting heavily.
woodelf <*>
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://members.home.net/woodelph/
The Laws of Anime <http://www.abcb.com/laws/index.htm>:
#38 Law of Hydrostatic Emission
Eyes tend to be rather large in Anime. This is because they contain
several gallons of water, which may be instantaneously released at high
pressure through large tear ducts. The actual volume of water contained
in the eyes is unknown, as there is no evidence to suggest that these
reservoirs are actually capable of running out. The reason water tends
to collect in the eyes is because Anime characters only have one large
sweat gland, which is located at the back of the head. When extremely
stressed, embarrassed, or worried, this sweat gland exudes a single but
very large drop of sebaceous fluid.
_______________________________________________
Ogf-l mailing list
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.opengamingfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/ogf-l
