--- Clark Peterson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Nothing in the license says that "clearly indicate" > means no referring to outside sources. I believe > reference to a freely and publically available thing > is not unreasonable and thus not unclear. Making > someone buy something to figure out the OGC, however, > seems unreasonable. > > Clark
Ok, how about an extreme example? I publish a 128 page book, and I say that everything is OGC except "material derived from X", a trademark used with permission from another 128 page book by someone else. The only thing that is "derived from X" is one line of text on page 47. Unless someone is intimately familiar with X, they will have no idea where this little nugget is embedded. Since I wrote this, I clearly know where it is, and my indication is unequivocal. But to someone without X, who has not read it a couple dozen times, this declaration is useless. If your declaration puts all of the work and responsibility on the party that wishes to use your content, that is not clear enough. The responsibility is on the author of the work, not the person who wishes to adapt it. This kind of extends into a larger issue, the spirit of the license. Sure, you can play these little games in shortening your section 15, finding creative ways to mark (or not mark, as the case may be) your OGC, getting permission to reuse copyrighted work outside of the OGL, etc. But all of this serves no one. One should spend their time on their game content. I or any other consumer picks up a book at a hobby shop or whatever, and my first evaluation is not "oh, look. what a neat idea, to put a faint pink background behind all of the non-OGC". I and just about anybody would rather have a line in 8-point taxt at the bottom of every applicable page that says "All material on this page is OGC." No, it does not get in the way of the presentation of the material. If I take Feat A from your book, even though you originally got it from someone's website, isn't it possible that I would be doing my customers a service by using your section 15. Perhaps you integrated the feat in a better way, or explained it, or gave an example that the original author did not. I may use only the feat itself not actually use your additional material, but if I go around you and get a section 15 from the original author, someone who buys my PDF or whatever might lose a valuable reference to a great source. OK, so my OGL extends to a second page because I can't get my printer to print it in a 1-point microfine print like they use as security features on the current US bills (except the $1). Oooooh, I lost a page. Reduce a piece of art to 90% it original size so that you don't exceed the 32-page signature that closes your book. Believe it or not, the OGL is not just an annoyance to designers. It's also a valuable reference for consumers. If only some of the more "high-end designers" (for lack of a better term) would do this, then people could see what books they think are cool. If I knew SKR liked a certain Green Ronin book, and I like SKR's stuff, then I might take a look at the other book. It saves me seven hours of flipping through things that I'm not interested in, the next time I go to the gaming store. One thing that could be improved in the OGL/OGC community is, well, community. Sure, the publishing houses compete for a limited pool of bucks. But the customers actually appreciate when their products from various publishers are even slightly integrated, or reference each other. A certain level of competition is good, but too much is worse than none. (My sincere apologies to anyone that read this whole rant; I got a bit carried away...) -Mike __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now. http://mailplus.yahoo.com _______________________________________________ Ogf-l mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.opengamingfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/ogf-l
