Publishers Opinion Of PCGen

[kzin]

(I removed this post because I was coming in to the thread late, and started repling as I went along (the eternal trade off between "post before I forget the point I wanted to make while reading all of the rest of the messages" and "waiting to respond until you have the rest of the story"). As Mynex said, there are some comments here that are hard to read without reacting to, but I should have waited on this one. I appologize, both to the community and Orcus, for raising the flame level.)

 

[Mynex]

So, you expect others to give you slack because you get some small number of email messages per day (yes, 150 a day is chump change) and some might slip through the cracks, yet when the situation is reversed you can't understand that your message might have slipped through?

There are days where I get 150 messages a day from the pcgen mailing list alone, not to mention everything else I do. And I'm just a pcgen _user_. I'm not on the other pcgen lists (xml, feature request list, etc.), and I don't get tons of personal email about pcgen (like I'm sure members of the core team do). To complain that your message fell upon deaf ears while you dodge your own email reliability is nothing short of hypocritical.

(and, by the way, did you mail an individual, like Bryan, or did you mail the team, or did you mail the mailing list?)



Which part of "trying to start a dialog with WOTC about compliance for the last 18 months" did you not understand?



Whether you see it as one or not, it definitely is a marketing avenue for your products. And, if you don't use it to its advantage, that means that it is going to be a weakness against your market sucess.

I'm not the only pcgen user who only buys from d20 publishers who are working with pcgen. By cutting yourself off from pcgen, you cut yourself off from some of your potential customers. (I don't mean that as a threat, it's a matter of convenience for me: I use pcgen for all of my d20 character and npc building, so I'm not going to buy products that can't be used with the d20 gaming tool which I use) [/B]

Kzin,

Woah nellie!!! Thanks for the support, but we're trying to keep it civil, regardless of past (in this thread) temper flares...

Clark has raised valid points, and I hope that we've addressed them, both on board and in private emails... Others have raised concerns as well, and hopefully those have been answered as well...

I realize that parts of this thread are really _realy_ hard to ignore and move on, hell, I've lost my temper at least once as well, but we've (hopefully) moved past that stage and onto more constructive dialog.

Please don't fan the embers of past posts, it doesn't serve anyone here any good.

Thanks for the support though, just tone it down a wee bit please.

 

[Mynex]

And so they should really stop distributing until it was done. Scott, as I recall, actually took his site down for those few hours. I removed the conversion library until it was OK to put it back up.

So, yeah - they may be in a similar position, but they're responding in a different way. Except, of course, that they weren't under the fan site policy, which didn't apply to a product.

What WotC asked us to stop distributing was the non-SRD data files... Which we had done for our production release already, so that was not an issue. and all past data sets of the non-SRD material have (finally!) been deleted from the Source Forge servers, so they can not be gotten to again, by anyone, for any reason! They're completely toast.

The point that keeps being glazed over, missed, ignored, misunderstood, whatnot, is this... the software and the data are 2 seperate entities...

The data is what WotC had issues with, not the code... The code does not need to be stopped in it's distribution, and in fact, to do so would cripple our effort to make sure we do cross all the T's and dot all the I's... regardless of what any of you may think about volunteerism, there are different circumstances and rules that apply here vs print/pdf publishing.

The data is where the OGL applies and the code is where the D20 applies, please remember they are 2 seperate entities we're talking about. The fact that they are seperate is what is making it so much easier for us to make these moves to full OGL/D20 compliancy...

We do _not_ have to go to the D20 compliancy, but we are choosing to. We don't even have to go to the OGL compliancy, as been noted, we do fall under copyright laws (again, if we want to debate this point, let's start a different thread on it), but as has also been noted on many other posts, the court costs would be astronomical and really, doesn't make sense to fight with WotC over this, when we can work with them to become OGL & D20 compliant and possibly negotiate the return of the older data sets (obviously with special permission and lots of negotiating I'm sure). Regardless of how small a chance it may be to get them back, since we want them back to have all the functionality that our users have enjoyed, we're perfectly happy to go forward with out decision to go fully D20 compliant...

 

[kzin]

I too feel that the d20 stl and OGl are not software friendly.

I hope d20stl wasn't one of the issues that caused you to form your opinion of pcgen's compliance. Until WOTC asked them to be d20stl compliant, the d20stl was a non-issue for pcgen. Pcgen hasn't been using the d20 trademarks, so they had no need to be compliant with the d20stl.

The issue is whether or not they were compliant with the OGL and OGC, and the OGL/OGC alone, up until WOTC said "We'll talk to you about the non-SRD material after you're d20stl compliant". That was the first point at which it became important for pcgen to be d20stl compliant, as far as I know (from the various discusions about licenses on the list).


(Followup to self: I realized after I wrote this that while PCGen wasn't using the "D20 System" logo, it was using some other trademarks (Dungeons and Dragons, etc.), which counters what I was saying)

 

[Mynex]

Re: hrm...

well it looks to me this arguement wont be solved until a court case comes up.

Exactly

which, i think was what everyone was wanting to avoid? no...

Very true, and I just posted exactly that thing.

wouldn't it be easier to just follow the ogl than to fight it?

Again, exactly what I just posted

also for the record, i'll never use PCgen. even if it is better than anything else, even if it does become compliant (yes, im irrational.). I just like guys that dont try, IMHO, to "get away" with breaking the spirit of the law because they "can".


joe b.

(i am not a lawyer, i dont work with pcgen and i've never told martha stewart any insider trading information... honest.)

Joe, here's where I have issues with you... You claim to not be a lawyer, yet you judge us as doing something shady (i.e. Breaking the spirit of the law)... we have never done any such thing, we have never claimed to, we have never gloated we were 'getting away with anything' or any such nonsense like that.

So here's my question to you... what basis do you make that claim? You have no background as a lawyer, you are not involved in PCGen in any way that I know of, and if you subscribe to the yahoo group, you'd know we have never made any such claims.

If you don't want to use PCGen because you feel that way, that's fine, it's most certainly your perogative, but please refrain from making statements like that, it serves no good for anyone.

 

[kzin]

So the only way to use OGC is to either use the OGL or to contact the originator of the content and license it.

How is this different from what Pcgen started doing? (contacting publishers and asking their permission to use their material)

 

[Twin Rose]

I'm going to post before this thread gets out of hand, and people start saying things that, from a legal standpoint, might have reprecussions that cannot be taken back.

A) PCGen is not trying to claim copyright law at this point. They are following the OGL. They are not compliant, at this time, with the license and hope to be before the 30 day grace period is completed.

B) PCGen is a fan tool that has bettered the community in many ways, but has in fact found supporters who violate the Wizard's of the Coast, Tor Fantasy (specifically Robert Jordan) and Lucasfilms (specifically Star Wars) copyrights. This was not their intend, and I do not believe they feel wonderful about the breech of intellectual property law - even if the mechanics were "okay" under previous stances.

C) Morrus and Scott fell under a different clause of the license in internet fan-based publications and news than does PCGen. PCGen is a product, whether it was meant to be or not.

D) The "PCGen Fanatics" are often out of line in their attacks on other products, or to publishers who do not readily agree to license their work to the core program. This creates a feeling of 'animosity' where a given publisher gets tired of emails saying, "why won't you let them do your work???" and in many cases they believe these messages come from the core "crew".

E) This is a debate, not a 'who can slam who' more forum. This is meant for publishers, and the team of PCGen, and other industry persona's. It would be preferable if, in the course of the debate, fans of one product or another did not attack someone with opposing viewpoints of the other.

F) I write a D20 software program, and what I post here is in defense of both PCGen and those publishers whom I consider my friends and aquaintances. Let's keep it civil. I do not in any way express oppinions about any product. This is a disclaimer.

 

[kzin]

Some examples would be "PCGen: A d20 character generator" - you have just applied yourself to the license.

No, you have not. Because that phrase does not contain anything that is protected, nor protectable. The d20STL does not cover "d20", it covers "d20 System" and the d20 system logo (the stylized graphic image).

Nothing in "A d20 character generator" is trademarked, nor is anything in that phrase trademarkable.

 

[Twin Rose]

No, you have not. Because that phrase does not contain anything that is protected, nor protectable. The d20STL does not cover "d20", it covers "d20 System" and the d20 system logo (the stylized graphic image).

Nothing in "A d20 character generator" is trademarked, nor is anything in that phrase trademarkable.

There are rules in the D20Stl for using D20 within text-based products. It includes the text that must be used. If, on the other hand, you believe that it is alright to use the term "D20" however you wish in reference to a gaming system that is entirely your right to interpret it as such. However, I would recommend consulting legal council before publically declaring any such interpretation. I, certainly, do not believe that the team at PCGen intended such "nitpicking" of the license as to imply the use of the term "D20" which does not fall under any fair-use provision that I'm aware of, and I believe it's unfortunate that people would put words in their mouths that might be taken as a legal standpoint.

Remember, we are talking about an application that is designed to improve gaming and to make everyone have a more enjoyable time playing a game - not one where the designers set out to nitpick and try to personally find a loophole in the d20 license that might, in fact, hinder it. I believe it's in all of our best interest to help them as we can, by being constructive, not to try and find loopholes that they can slip-through.

 

[Grazzt]

C) Morrus and Scott fell under a different clause of the license in internet fan-based publications and news than does PCGen. PCGen is a product, whether it was meant to be or not.

Someone finally gets it.