>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.
actually, that's a good point (though pretty much unrelated to the
one i was making). many openness advocates would claim that calling
something open is a moot point if it's not easy, or at least
practical, for people to reuse it. thus, since the WOGL does nothing
to make the open content actually available, it's sort of a moot
point that it's free. frex, if i want to reuse something from Relics
& Rituals (and from what i've heard, if i were using D&D i probably
would), i'd first have to find someone who owns a copy. i'd then
have to retype the relevant content. or find a scanner, and then i'd
have to go through and fix all the errors from the scan. if i want
to reuse something that's under one of the GNU licenses, Dominion
Rules License, or OOGL, i either already have the digital source, or
there is a website or ftp site or, worst case, the publisher will
mail me a copy on disk.
>
>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.
Grey Ghost Games is making their living off of Fudge, which is freely
available online in half-a-dozen places, including GGG's website.
as for the scenario you paint: would you really have a problem with
that? they have to maintain the credits, so everybody will know that
you're the one who wrote it. and there's market pressure: you can
tell people that they're, in effect, ripping you off perfectly
legally. me, i'd be tickled pink that something i did was that
popular. though, i admit, i'd be a bit cheesed off if the only
change was cosmetic *and* i'd invested significant money in it.
that's why, in the open-content software world, such companies are
moving to other revenue models, rather than sales of a software
product (mostly service/support, and value-added add-ons). must
admit, i'm not entirely certain how that model translates to
companies wanting to make money in the RPG world.
as for the OOGL: we've got at least one, probably 3, RPGs in various
stages of completion taht will be released under the OOGL. frankly,
we can't afford an investment of more than a hundred bucks or two,
anyway, so we'd never see the returns that commercial (hard-copy)
publishing could yield, in any case. so, with minimal investment
comes minimal potential loss, meaning that we're more than happy to
see our stuff get re-used. for a long time now, the currency of
success in the software world has been as much or more recognition
than money. this has also been true to a great degree in the RPG
world--perhaps the shift will become greater in the future, due to
various open and semi-open licenses.
woodelf <*>
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://members.home.net/woodelph/
What's new?
Um, cee over lambda?
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