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Message: <blockquote data-quote="barsoomcore" data-source="post: 1493521" data-attributes="member: 812">How will your choices be reduced, exactly? Nobody's going to take away the existing material, so your choices will remain at the very least exactly what they are today. And given that there's no reason to think existing publishers won't continue to expand their existing lines, your choice will actually increase.Now, if you want to play the imaginary "Closed 4E", then yes, your choices will be limited. But your 3E choices will remain every bit as broad as they are today.Nope. Here's the scenario:Proposed as an "ethical" thing. Rebutted by Bendris Noulg as follows:I take it from your previous comments that you would not have a problem with #1 -- you actually haven't been saying that the OGL is supposed to increase the sales of those who use it, as far as I know. So if #1 looks okey-dokey to you, end of story.This has all come down to a question of which is the better way to judge other people's actions: with morality or legality. And the truth is that a free society can only be built by using legality. A legal code is in fact a moral document, just one that's been dispossessed from any particular person's expression. This is important because what we need is a code of behaviour we can all agree to respect. If we don't have an externally defined code that everyone can consult on demand and understand as they need to, then we can't expect people to know what the standards of behaviour are. Expecting people to know what YOU consider moral, and asking them to adhere to some code that isn't defined anywhere, is futile. A community can't operate that way -- which is why the OGL is a big deal.The OGL, as a legal document, takes the whole question of "What is right" out of the arena of discussion. Or rather, it lays out very clearly (well, reasonably clearly) "What is right", and people who make use of it do so on the understanding that they are agreeing with the license's definition of "right". If they didn't agree with it, they wouldn't use it.To say that a publisher ought to receive consideration above and beyond what the license spells out is to assume a great deal on the part of the publisher. You're assuming that when a publisher uses the OGL, they're saying, "Here's some Open Content, but please don't use it in some particular way, even though that way is clearly stated as being okay according to the license I released it under." How do you know that's what the publisher wants?Now perhaps the publisher has issued a statement saying exactly that. Fair enough. Now we know. But in the absence of such a statement, how do we determine the publisher's desires?Well, it seems obvious to me that we look at what statements they have made about their release. And the OGL is such a statement. And what it says is pretty clear and has been quoted enough in this thread that I'm really wondering why people aren't getting this. Releasing product using the OGL is a statement, and one of the things that statement communicates is, "Here are the rules regarding the use of this content."How is it possible that somebody who reads that statement, understands it and acts in accordance with it is behaving unethically? No explanation has been offered for this notion other than:<ol> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">I think it's mean.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">It will hurt the industry.</li> </ol>The former depends on an assumption about the publisher's desires that, in the absence of evidence for any particular release, is unsupportable. The latter is unsupported by any evidence so far submitted.</blockquote>

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