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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Brown Jenkin" data-source="post: 317162" data-attributes="member: 2572">Henry: Thanks for bringing civility back to this. I agree with you on almost all points, particularly the part about hating to make paper characters anymore. The main drawback to me about using e-tools is the lack of class editing. I enjoy using PrCs and the inability to support this makes e-tools near useless to me.Mynex: Thanks for once again stateing what has been stated repeadedly. I wish you the best of luck with your program and I understand your need to defend it whenever it is attacked. Drawmack: With regards to d20 publishers releasing information in pdf format whether for a price or for free, yes they deffinitely still control it. Now if Bastion Press (I don't know thier material or situation, I am using them as a hypothetical since you mentioned them) were to then allow and encourage this IP to be redistributed for free by others, then yes I believe they have given up control and I could reformat the data into a different file type first. If however at the release site or as part of the lisence agreement they prohibit this redistribution, then they still retain full rights and it would be illeagal to redistribute it without permission. Your point about PCGen being under the GPL and therefore all parts are open source, you may have a point there, I am not familiar with the details of this. If this is the case and I was a d20 publisher I would be reluctant to allow them to distribute my data. If I still wanted my product to be included, there is a way around this. I could prohibit the lst file from being distributed with PCGen, but make it downloadable from my site with the proper restrictions about redistribution in place. That way the Program can be GPL but my copyrights are still intact. If as Henry pointed out and I believe it is correct then the info in a lst is not nearly enough to compromise the majority of my IP, and if it increases my overall sales, then even given the GPL restrictions I may not have a problem with it.As for WotC distributing thier IP directly from thier site, yes absolutely it is still thier IP and can not be redistributed without permission.  But as you said it is thiers to do with what they want. What they are doing right now however is encouraging, or at least allowing with full knowlege, other people to enter IP that was not included in the release and then freely distribute it on the internet. Once this is done they are no longer in control of how that material is used or distributed. My original point is that partialy aimed at WotC and partialy at these boards and others, why does the ban on lst files exist while this same IP is being distributed in a diferent file format. If you have knowlege of a ban on IP distribution in one format why is it ok to allow it in a different format, or if it is permissable to share in one format why not another. Unfortunately my point here may be unfavorable to everyone since it seams to me WotC has no desire to see e-tools succeed. If this is case then sure you can enforce the ban on non-SRD materials being redistributed, but then you kill both e-tools and PCGen at the same time. However if you want e-tools to suceed without competition from PCGen then you must officially release the non-SRD material. If WotC wishes to continue with thier current course however I don't see how the current discrimination against lst files can be allowed.As far as the file format being proprietary, so is Word, Excel, and Access. This does not however grant Microsoft rights to anything you create and distribute using these programs. If you enter your own creative work into e-tools this is still your work and WotC has no rights to it. You may distribute this work anyway you choose, the file format is irrelavant.</blockquote>

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