Publishers Opinion Of PCGen

[kzin]

Re: Re: Re: In my humble opinion

now THAT is a great idea! Although "God with one-eye" is a dead give away..sigh..the price of compliance.

Wouldn't it be better to call him "God of the Orcs"?


And for the non-ethnic dieties, refer to them by domain, like "God of Nature and Druids" or something (random hypothetical, not meant to refer to any particular diety).

 

[Grazzt]

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 is right. Tone it down Kzin.

As an Admin here I can say that... I don't wanna have to flex my Admin muscles and kill this thread.

 

[Grazzt]

Kewl, you complied. So is PcGen, but as i said, code takes a lot longer to fix, mostly because code is a lot more complex than plain text. Also, PcGen had an agrement with WotC (allowing them the use of their material), they also had similar agrements with a lot of other publishers.

From what I gathered here in this thread, PCGen only recently opened a dialogue with WotC about their stuff. If they had a previous agreement cool.

WOW! You to! So said the PcGen team, and guess what, no one believed them. According to Orcus, if you use OGL material (everything SRD, thus the statistics you use) you are bound to the OGL. Go ask Orcus he's an evil Lawyer ;-)

My site, like ENWorld, fell under a totally different policy than PCGen. Has nothing to do with OGL at all. PCGen is a product. My site (ENWorld as well) are not. We fell under the fan-site policy that TSR/WotC instilled. When that policy was changed (and I was asked to start using the OGL), I did. Until then, I wasnt even bound by it. I was bound by a totally different "license."

The PcGen guys to, it just takes a lot longer. But if you think it can be done faster, i'm sure that the PcGen folks could arrange some source code for you...

Yeppers- I know it takes longer. I have coded in C++ as well as VB. Not fun stuff sometimes. But- it matters not.

 

[kzin]

Then they say "we are now getting compliant voluntarily." To which I ask, if you got what you want with copyright law and thought that was a valid position and legally defensible, why change?

My understanding and observation was that it was part of the existing "specific permission from the publisher, outside of the OGL" process that PCGen had been following for a while. Any vendor could have said "we will give you that permission for our products if you become OGL and/or d20STL compliant". It just happens that the vendor who did so was WOTC.

(or, rather "we wont talk to you about using our other stuff until you are OGL/STL compliant")

PCgen had been trying to contact them for a while to get that permission, and hadn't been able to find the right person to talk to, and not getting meaningful response. They finnaly tracked someone down from WOTC at GenCon (or, rather, both groups tracked eachother down), asked the question, and got back "do the OGL thing first."

So, the event that caused the change was that in order to get the permission from one vendor (probably the most important one) they had to adopt the OGL and STL licenses instead of continuing to try to rely upon outside permission/licensing. It's not that they decided the previous path was less legal than they previously thought.

But, again, that's my observation as a user/list-badger.

 

[kzin]

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.

No offense, but have you actually read the d20STL and the license guide? "D20" and "d20" are not in the list of trademarks. The list of trademarks governed by those licenses are (quoted from the guide, with my parenthetical explanation of the first item):

The d20 system logo (the stylized graphic image)
The trademark "D20 System"
Dungeons and Dragons
The Dungeons and Dragons logo
Wizards of the Coast


The exact word "D20" is not a trademark. It's not even trademarkable. It's a) a noun which is not distinguished from its common use as a noun, and b) it is, and has been, in common use since before anyone thought to try to trademark it.

"D20 System" works as a trademark because D20 is not being used as a noun, it's being used as an adjective which modifies/specifies which "System".

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.

It's not a matter of legal loopholes and nitpicking. It's simple truth that "d20" and "D20" are not trademarked and not trademarkable, and thus "A D20 Character Generator" is not violating anyone's trademarks.

Further, it's not a matter of creating legal loop holes to try to figure out a way to indicate something without using its trademarks. I want to indicate that I'm a program that works with the d20SRD, so I think of a way to indicate that which does not violate trademarks. I notice that "d20" and "D20" are not trademarked, so I use them. (personally, I prefer to actually say "d20SRD" instead of just "d20")

Saying that that's nitpicking and loop-holing is like saying that knocking on someone's door and asking to come in, instead of breaking in a window and crawling through, is nitpicking and loop-holing. I want access to someone's house so I ask my self "what's the legal way to do that?" and go follow that track.

Similarly, I want to indicate association with the d20SRD (but perhaps not with particular d20 products), and I want to do so in way that doesn't violate (nor use) the d20STL. So I figure out how to do that, which means I use non-trademarked terms, like "d20", "D20" and "d20SRD" (though my use of D20 may not include "D20 System"). It's not a loop-hole in any way.

 

[Cergorach]

That would make the difference. Thing is, the PC Gen people have, on this thread, said that only now have they had any dialogue with WotC. If they had an actual agreement, then all is fine and dandy.

Mynex, please correct me if i'm wrong. I recall that there was an unofficial agrement between the PcGen group and WotC (i believe it was Ryan specifically). Again i could be wrong ;-)

Ummm... I'm not even sure how to respond to this. It's irrelevant. Yes, we know it takes longer. Sure, we sympathise - I'm glad it's not my job to do. No, we don't blame them if it takes 3 years to do. I already said all that. What's your point here?

My point, there's a huge difference wetween three weeks and three years. What would happen if you took ENworld down for three years? It would be effectively dead. Same for PcGen if they took it down for three years (or however long it would take).

Now WotC (Anthony specifically) is not being difficult at all, they asked the PcGen group to remove certain datafiles and they have done that (actually even before WotC asked i believe). The rest of the data they are using they have the persmission of the publishers (or is OGL).

WotC is the Liscence holder of the OGL Liscence and gives the Nod to PcGen group, why is it then that other OGL users are complaining to the PcGen group about their non-compliance at the moment?

Conversation should have gone something like thïs:
-Please give us your opinion of PcGen.
-Your not compliant with the OGL Liscence.
-We know, we're working on that with WotC.
-But...
-WotC gave us the Nod.
-Ehh... Ok.
<insert further discussion of PcGen about anything but the comliance issue>

But instead this thread has gone on for six pages about the non-compliance issue. Discussions between professional couch-lawyers and professional layers that keep going on and on and on and on... Thud! *sounds of head falling on keyboard*

It's all so tiring, and there hasn't been one constructive issue raised yet (or i could be wrong again ;-)

So what do Publishers think about PcGen? (if someon starts the non-compliance issue again, í swear i'm going to make them eat the OGL ;-)

 

[kzin]

Tone it down Kzin.

Sorry :-} I went back and changed the post in question to an appology (and explanation).

 

[Cergorach]

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.

Now that's where i'm confused, why is the CC not a product (they even made a PDF) and PcGen is? Why can't PcGen not fall under "internet fan-based publications"? Maybe i'm dense, but i'm not really seeing a difference here...

 

[Twin Rose]

This thread should be moved to the software forum, or closed. The publishers are no longer being asked oppinions, and when they post them, fans attack them.

 

[Morrus]

My understanding and observation was that it was part of the existing "specific permission from the publisher, outside of the OGL" process that PCGen had been following for a while. Any vendor could have said "we will give you that permission for our products if you become OGL and/or d20STL compliant". It just happens that the vendor who did so was WOTC.

How is this statement compatible with:

PCgen had been trying to contact them for a while to get that permission, and hadn't been able to find the right person to talk to, and not getting meaningful response.

That's where I'm confused, especially with so many different people saying contradictory things.

Quesiton to PCGen folks: did WotC or did they not give permission to use their material when you first started using it? That single issue has a great bearing on my personal view of the situation, and, depending on which way you answer, pretty much negates 50% of the posts in this thread (whichever 50% they may be).