D&D 4E Interesting Article on OGL and 4E

[Raven Crowking]

The philosophy behind Open Gaming had some pretty simple criteria:
( http://opengamingfoundation.org/licenses.html )



It's pretty clear that the new GSL will fail these criteria. (1) It won't be able to be "freely copied" (free meaning "as in freedom") because, for example, we know some people will be allowed to use it in June 2008 while most are prohibited until January 2009. (2) We know that the GSL will include the old d20 System "quality standards" requirement, which includes a termination clause on the part of WOTC.

The OGL was pretty carefully written so as to make it impossible to ever change it in a way that violated these principles. It's not like it's some kind of accident that WOTC just decided to rename it & change all the contents.

That's why the GSL is not an Open Gaming license.

Absolutely.

An that's why, when WotC reps told us that 4e would be published under an OGL, they were (once more) blowing smoke in our faces.

RC

 

[Raven Crowking]

GR has historically been one of the publishers with the most liberal open content designations, from our very first product. We are happy for eager devlopers to use our content in the way we did, as a jumping off point to design new products. Releasing an SRD for our open content was not part of a business plan.

Wasn't it GR that included a provision to pay adventure writers for using monsters from their Oriental monster sourcebook, Jade Dragon & Hungry Ghosts, in published material, in addition to whatever pay the writers received for the material itself (from that material's publishers)?

AFAICT, few companies rock as hard as GR for giving back to the gaming community.

Kudos.

RC

 

[Lizard]

Lizard, please allow me to explain why I do not see these two things as equivalent.

Just to clarify my own point here, I do not think GR has done anything wrong, unethical, or hypocritical. As you note, all you've done is ask people to respect your work, not tried to enforce anything beyond the terms of the OGL.

My comments were aimed, primarily, at those who keep using the True SRD as an example of a "loophole" or "flaw" in the OGL, as opposed to it working as intended. Constant repetition of the phrase "exploited a loophole" is extremely grating. It's like saying that taking deductions for your children is "exploiting a loophole" in the tax code, or that borrowing books from a library is "exploiting a loophole" in copyright law.