This is a quote from the Shards of the Stone "FiveStat" web page (www.shardsofthestone.com)
"FiveStat is the new rules system that we are using for online play. We have analyzed all game systems and their licensing agreements, and have realized that even systems that attempt to be "open source" are not truly open and limit our ability to do online, electronic games with our properties." I had this brought to my attention by a 3rd party who wanted to know if this claim was true. Here are my thoughts on the matter: The OGL can be used as the basis of software that enables computer and/or on-line RPG play. Due to the unique nature of the need to "clearly identify" the Open Game Content(1), the issues of what consititutes a derivative work in software(2), and a few other technical details(3), my opinion is that at this time, the best way to use the OGL with a computer and/or on-line game is to license the source code of that game under an Open Source license (per the Open Source Initiative's Definition of Open Source at www.opensource.org) as well as the OGL. The "limitation" of the OGL as it relates to software, such as it is, is that unlike a paper-based RPG, there is no good way to combine both open and closed content in one work. If you think that your software code is more valuable than the materials available to you with the OGL, then the OGL is probably not a good choice for your efforts. This is, however, essentially the opposite of "not open", in that the actual condition is "more open than some people want". While I understand the frustration, I also don't think it's fair to say that because you can't mix open and closed content in this particular medium as easily as you can in print that the license is "not truly open". One final comment: If you produced a work of software and distributed it as source code, you could use the OGL just like paper-based RPG publishers are using it; that is, you could identify some parts as OGC, some parts as PI, and leave the rest under separate copyright. The recipient would have to compile the software themselves to create a usable binary, or you would have to rely on an interpreted language like PERL or PYTHON. The upside to this approach is that it works fine with the OGL and there are no confusing issues. The downside is that people will actually be able to read every line of your source, even if they don't gain the rights to copy, modify, or distribute those non-OGC poritions. Again, if you think that keeping the details of your source a secret is worth more than the value of the available OGC material, this approach is probably not a good one for you. Ryan Summary for those coming in late: (1): The OGL requires that you "clearly identify" the portions of the work which are Open Game Content. This is a challenge if the work is a compiled binary; you may not know or be able to clearly identify which bits are actually OGC and which are not. This issue is partially related to #2, below, becuase the OGC portion of your work may be substantially larger than you suspect. (2): Derivative works in software are often held to be more extensive in nature than they are in other kinds of media. The Open Source community holds that if so much as one line of Open Source derived code is used to build a package or application, that whole application becomes a derivative work. The Free Software Foundation (www.fsf.org) believes that both static and dynamic linking creates derivative works as well; meaning that you cannot segregate certain kinds of content into libraries and use an interprocess communication mechanism to re-connect them at runtime. The FSF also holds that the method of interprocess communication is irrelevant, and has suggested that they see internet protocols such as HTTP when used as the backbone for distributed computing applications as creating derivative works as well. Until the law is more clear in this area, it is impossible to determine who is more likely to prevail at court - those with a narrow interpretation of derivative works or those with a wider interpretation. Proceed with caution. (3): There are a variety of minor technical issues with the OGL as a software license. First, and foremost, nowhere in the OGL does the license require you to distribute human-readable sourcecode. While access to source is the foundation of the whole Free Software/Open Source movement, it is not relevant to the topic of Open Games and was not addressed by the OGL itself. The OGL does not have a clause permitting distribution of OGC under a joint license; in other words, the license itself does not permit you to encumber the OGC with additional restrictions such as those from some of the more restrictive Free/Open Source software licenses such as the GPL. _______________________________________________ Ogf-l mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.opengamingfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/ogf-l
