OGC Wiki?

[Yair]

Now I am not a lawyer, I wish I was, more money. But reading both the Open Gaming License and the GNU Free Documentation License, I seriously believe that an OGL wiki would be illegal under both licenses.

Why?
...

So clearly we see that the GNU license is adding terms to the OGL, and the OGL is adding terms to the GNU license. Activities which BOTH licenses prohibit.

No one is proposing to post OGC under the GNU FDL. The intention is to use only the OGL. Any references to the Open Source Community or such are for analogy only.

 

[Yair]

Nellisir's Open Source Model Proposal: Concrete Guidelines; REVISED

As it seems Nellisir is busy, let me try to explain (what I understood as) his proposal.

The idea is to mimic the Open Source code model.
We set up a Free Content Repository (FCR). The contributions are limited to

1. The SRD.
2. Material released for free by its creators, that is derived only from FCR content.
3. Content whose creator endorsed releasing into the FCR, which is derived only from FCR content.
4. Possibly other definitive works where these are already available for free online, such the Unearthed Arcana content. This article we are not sure about (both me and Nellisir).
5. Any content that Uses FCR content, i.e. that lists the FCR in its Section 15, but not extending to parts thereof derived from non-FCR content, and only after an 18 months grace period.

The FCR is viral. If you choose to Use content from the FCR, you are consenting to your derived content being extracted into the FCR. If you don't like it, don't use the FCR content.
It has a strict no-backsies policy - once released into the FCR, the material is FREE.

Comments?

 

[Ralts Bloodthorne]

As it seems Nellisir is busy, let me try to explain (what I understood as) his proposal.

The idea is to mimic the Open Source code model.
We set up a Free Content Repository (FCR). The contributions are limited to

1. The SRD.
2. Material released for free by its creators, that is derived only from FCR content.
3. Content whose creator endorsed releasing into the FCR, which is derived only from FCR content.
4. Possibly other definitive works where these are already available for free online, such the Unearthed Arcana content. This article we are not sure about (both me and Nellisir).
5. Any content that Uses FCR content, but not extending to parts thereof derived from non-FCR content.

The FCR is viral. If you choose to Use content from the FCR, you are consenting to your derived content being extracted into the FCR. If you don't like it, don't use the FCR content.
It has a strict no-backsies policy - once released into the FCR, the material is FREE.

Comments?

Then I'm against it.

Since all it basically says is: "Anything you come up with, we'll post here whenever we feel like it, and there's nothing you can do."

I vote no.

 

[Yair]

Since all it basically says is: "Anything you come up with, we'll post here whenever we feel like it, and there's nothing you can do."

HOW did you get from what I posted to THAT?
The closest thing it say is "Anything that you come up with THAT IS BASED ON WHAT'S HERE, we'll post here whether you like it or not".
It specifically says "Anything that you come up with THAT IS NOT BASED ON FREE CONTENT, we will NOT post here".
The only part where it says that "we'll post here whenever we feel like it, and there's nothing you can do [about it]" is when it alludes to using the OGL.

 

[Roudi]

Something I'd like to point out.

We set up a Free Content Repository (FCR). The contributions are limited to
1. The SRD...
5. Any content that Uses FCR content, but not extending to parts thereof derived from non-FCR content.

Since the SRD is part of your FCR to begin with, then according to statement 5, anything derived from the SRD is fair game. Considering that all open content derives from the SRD (you will not find an OGL section 15 that does not cite one or both SRDs), then no open content falls under the category of "non-FCR content."

So I understand Ralts when he says this:

all it basically says is: "Anything you come up with, we'll post here whenever we feel like it, and there's nothing you can do."

According to your five terms, it is basically what you said.

 

[philreed]

I'd just like to add that what's being talked about has serious potential to damage people's livelihoods. It's easy to be cavalier about such things when it's not your salary or your mortgage payments on the line.

What I find frustrating are the number of people that feel as if I owe them the OGC and if I object to my work being given away to the world then I'm obviously anti-OGL and just taking advantage of everyone. It's as if they feel that I should feel lucky to get to spend my days working on gaming material.

It becomes even more frustrating when these same people tell me that I'm just in the game industry for the money. If there's that much money to be made around here I must be an idiot because I haven't stumbled across it yet.

 

[philreed]

Possibly other definitive works where these are already available for free online, such the Unearthed Arcana content.

But then you run into the situation where someone posts a chunk of OGC online and BAM there it is, already available free online.

 

[Nellisir]

Something I'd like to point out.
Since the SRD is part of your FCR to begin with, then according to statement 5, anything derived from the SRD is fair game. Considering that all open content derives from the SRD (you will not find an OGL section 15 that does not cite one or both SRDs), then no open content falls under the category of "non-FCR content."

So I understand Ralts when he says this:

According to your five terms, it is basically what you said.

#5 would only apply if your S.15 includes the phrase *Free Content Repository: [material], copyright 2006, [copyright holder]*

The parts of the SRD that are contributed into the FCR become FCR-content, just like the parts of the SRD that are in the Hypertext SRD have become "Hypertext SRD-content". The original SRD still stands.

 

[Nellisir]

But then you run into the situation where someone posts a chunk of OGC online and BAM there it is, already available free online.

The FCR would take content that was {released on the internet by the copyright owner for free and with the intent that said content be distributed}.

My intent is that this would exclude campaign websites and house rules documents, as well as what you mention above.

 

[philreed]

The biggest risk of an OGC Wiki is that copyrighted, not-open material will find its way onto the site. What happens when this non-OGC material is used by someone else? How long would it take before, like a virus, illegal material spreads throughout products and the industry?

Multiple attempts at stripping the OGC from Unearthed Arcana has, if only one thing, shown me that many people do not grasp even the basics of the OGL.

I do not have any confidence that an OGC Wiki would remain legal for long. And if publishers do not have confidence in the site then we're again back to:

This site will have a negative impact on publishers which will lead to a negative impact on the OGC community.