Hmmmm.
Just piping in to add a little bit to this conversation. I thought I might
point to another example of an open gaming liscence to compare and contrast
with what's out there.
The Dominion Rules Liscence(DRL):
The DRL works fairly similarly to the WOGL. Rather than having PI and OGC
the DRL defines these things in terms of the work.
1. Dominion Rules - These are the basic rules system that DR has put out.
2. Modifications - These are changes to the rules - Monsters, Weapons,
Actual Rules that you can publish of your own.
3. Compatible Work - These are things like adventures that reference the
rules or setting info. Basically what falls under PI.
4. Larger work - Basically, if you mix and match, each sub work is
considered a work unto itself.
So under DRL what makes it open or not is dependant on the type of material
it is vs the markings. Also of interest, the DRL requires you to keep open
info publicly available as long as you sell the product, thus you HAVE to
have a web site for it.
The October Liscence on the other hand has no mechanic whatsoever for
keeping things from being opened. This is all great on paper (like
communism) but I don't see it finding wide spread use. I would use it, but
I'm not a publisher nothing I do will make it past my own web site. As a
publisher, knowing that the book I just published could be scooped up by a
bigger company who adds nicer graphics and removes a couple of my glowing
endorsements can now sell 10 times the number of the exact same book would
scare me off.
-Bill
> -----Original Message-----
> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of woodelf
> (lists)
> Sent: Tuesday, May 08, 2001 8:15 PM
> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Subject: Re: [Ogf-l] Scarred Lands
>
>
> >Woodelf-
> >
> >Sounds like the real problem is your "preconceived
> >notions of what an open game should look like."
>
> ok, either i'm not understanding your line of reasoning, or one of us
> is not being clear, or there is a difference of opinion on
> definitions. please excuse if any of this message sounds
> adversarial; i'm trying to be clear, but i'm not sure how it'll come
> across in email.
>
> >Neither the license nor Diomin as a product is
> >misleading or dishonest.
> >
> >It IS an "Open Game" license. They took a "game" (D&D)
> >and made it "open" for you as a developer to use.
>
> then you're saying that the various D20 works are not released under
> the WOGL? because they are "games", but they are not (on balance)
> "open". or are you saying that they are not "games"? i suppose, in
> the sense that they are not stand-alone entertainments, that is true.
> but the WOGL is clearly designed for both whole games and game
> add-ons. and Diomin, etc., are just as much released under the WOGL
> is is the D20SRD, so you have to look at them, too. and it's not the
> (Open Game) License--it is not a license to use the D20 system for
> other works. it is a license for anyone to give away anything they
> jolly well want to (presumably in the RPG realm, though it makes no
> such limitaitons). the fact that WotC has generously chosen to
> release the vast majority of the core D&D3E rules as OGC under the
> WOGL, doesn't change the nature of the license, even if they are so
> far the only company to have utilized the WOGL (for an original
> game). moreover, the WOGL is not about the consumer, it's about the
> producer: it's a license for the producer to give away her work.
>
> do we disagree as to what constitutes "open"? are you saying that a
> work that has any open content may, on the whole, be labeled "open"?
> in case i wasn't clear before, it is my opinion that it is dishonest
> to label something as "open" unless at least the bulk of it, if not
> all of it [i'm undecided as to where to draw the line], is open.
> it's much like the offer the phone company made me a couple of months
> ago. in one sentence, the representative on the phone told me that i
> "could have this free phone for only $12.95". and he seemed
> genuinely surprised when i told him that wasn't "free". i explained
> to him 3 times that i was unaware that the definition of "free"
> involved spending money, before he finally understood my objections
> and switched to pointing out that $12.95 was much cheaper than a
> comparable phone the store. i never could convince him that not
> getting a new phone (at a cost of 0) was even cheaper than that. if
> you're comfortable with something that will cost you $12.95 being
> described as "free" then we simply have a difference of opinion, and
> we may as well save everyone else the bandwidth. if not, then our
> disagreement may stem from a simple miscommunication, and it may be
> possible to come to agreement.
>
> or is our disagreement one of what constitutes a "game"? are you
> arguing that only the mathematial elements are the game, and all the
> setting/narrative stuff is something else? maybe--i'm not sure; RPGs
> are very confusing in that realm. if that's the nature of the
> disagreement, then we're talking past each other, because i wasn't
> even considering that element of the situation.
>
> hypothetical: if the D20SRD represented about the same percentage of
> the 3 core D&D3E books as the OGC did of Diomin, Creature Collection,
> or Relics & Rituals, would you still consider it legitimate to
> consider D20 an "open game"? for that matter, if you consider the
> entirety of the D&D game [for fairness, just the new 3E line), only a
> small portion of it is part of the D20SRD--is Defenders of the Faith
> not "the D&D game"? is there any non-arbitrary way to designate some
> of D&D as "the game" nad some of it as something else? [so far, the
> PI designation doesn't seem to be non-arbitrary, because if someone
> else were to use that definition, much less of the core books would
> be OGC (based on others using that definition (presumably) when
> designating what is open and what not in their WOGLed products),
> which means that there is some judgement involved in its application.]
>
> >There is no promise in that license
>
> the promise is in the title. it is called "Open Game License".
> given no other information than the title of the license, why
> *wouldn't* one assume that it's about open content works? yet the
> actual text of it says, in effect, "certain material must be
> infectiously open, but much material may be completely non-open".
>
> >nor is there any
> >requirement that anything other than open game content
> >or derived content be open.
>
> and that's exactly my complaint. correct me if i'm wrong, but prior
> to the WotC/OGF OGL, there were no open-content licenses that
> explicitly permitted a work released under them to contain original
> non-open content (several allowed you to aggregate pre-existing open
> and non-open work, and tehre may have been ways to get away with it).
> ditto for The Cathedral and the Bazaar, which, IIRC, at no point
> suggests that releasing a portion of a work as open while keeping the
> rest proprietary is the point of open content development models.
> the WOGL is purported to be a logical extension of the ideas in
> previous open content work, specifically the writings of Eric
> Raymond, into the sphere of the RPG. therefore, i think it is a
> perfectly reasonable assumption that it would not have mechanisms for
> keeping portions of your work closed.
>
> >The fact that you want the license to be different
> >doesnt make the use of the license as it is
> >"dishonest" or "false advertising."
>
> see above. one last point. my intention is not to say "i want it to
> be this way, anything else is wrong". i'm trying to point out that
> there are plenty of logical antecedents to my argument, and that
> someone not steeped in the OGF could easily come to the same
> conclusions i have. the basis of my argument is that i read a couple
> of articles/interviews talking about the WOGL, in which the
> authors/backers referenced a bunch of existing open content
> development models and theories and licenses. i went and looked
> these up, and read up on them. i talked to advocates of open
> development in the computer world. at no point did any of these
> sources (including the ones that the OGF claims are the
> (inspirational) sources for the WOGL) say anything about semi-open
> content (except to disparage it as not true open content[1]). i then
> looked at the completed WOGL (i missed out on all the discussion
> during its creation). i was completely taken by surprise by the
> whole PI clause, not just the form of it--it had never occured to me
> that on open content license (RPG or otherwise) would have mechanisms
> for explicitly protecting content, other than perhaps invariant
> sections. show me the obvious logical derivation that i clearly
> missed, that takes (Open Development) + (RPG) and comes up with the
> semi-open WOGL. i'm not saying that the WOGL shouldn't exist, or
> that no one should use it, or that it doesn't serve a very useful
> role that a completely open game license couldn't serve. but i think
> it's a bit silly to claim that i'm naive for expecting it to be more
> similar to all the other open development works out there.
>
> [1] n.b.: for now, i'm sidestepping the question of what is "true"
> open content, and what isn't. frex, some claim that if someone can
> turn it into a commercial product, it's not open enough, because it
> should always be free to the world. others say that if you can
> restrict someone from turning it into a commercial product, it's not
> open enough, because you should always be able to do whatever you
> want with it.
>
> woodelf <*>
> [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> http://members.home.net/woodelph/
>
> An eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind. - Gandhi
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