<<"5. RESTRICTIONS: All Open Content Used under this license must comply
with the
most recent version of the Action! System Developer's Guide (hereinafter
"ASDG"), available from Gold Rush Games or from the Action! System web
site at
www.action-system.com."
Makes this a non-Open license, in my opinion, because it allows Gold
Rush Games to impose additional content distribution limitations after
the fact of publication and distribution.
>>
I think this may be in there so GRG can effectively control which types of products can use the Action System License from a compatibility standpoint. Initially Mr. Arsenault was really NOT wanting to open up all his content to allow it to be ported to other platforms.
After an exhaustive discussion of the subject on thing became crystal clear -- without a really ugly license or a wholly external developer's guide it's almost impossible, in short order to both define compatibility and also allow people to tinker with or alter certain mechanics. It's not hard to describe really minimal compatibility, but beyond that it started getting tricky.
It's not like software, where, to some degree or another, "compatibility" means, at the most minimal level, that it can launch and run. Game compatibility is frequently hard to describe in short order and that was a major GRG concern.
I'm not defending the choice at all, but I think that's probably where some of that stuff may be coming from.
The OGL opens up the SRD, but at least a while ago GRG didn't want to just crank open their entire product. The OGL allows the SRD to be ported to a different mechanical environment. GRG wanted to prevent that (at least formerly) with Action System.
It's not really a fully open license. But these may be a few reasons why GRG decided to close down parts of it.
Lee
