I used to use PCGen although I switched to Campaign Suite. I hold no animosity towards PCGen and will agree that the material I saw in it would not be useful if the user did not own the original product.
However, I do have some questions that have cropped up before or I've wondered myself. This seems like the ideal place to ask them, if for no other reason than to allow a public response from various publishers.
1) Clark, Wil, and others. I'm not a legal whiz. I'm not a publisher. However, it seems to me that when you claim you're d20 compliant (by placing the logo on your product) then the burden of action is not on you to get some sort of certification of compliancy - rather, the burden is on WotC to determine on their own and send a C&D or open up some dialogue.
In otherwords, if FFG or NG were to publish a product and place a d20 System Logo on it, they are not required to go to WotC and get it approved. Rather, if WotC has a problem with it, they will get in contact with the publisher.
Am I right on this?
If I'm right does this also apply to software vendors?
2) I also would like an answer to Morrus' questions.
3) Mynex or other PCGen folks, could you comment as to the compatability of the OGL/d20 STL with software licenses, such as the CopyLeft?
4) Are there any legal cases supporting the defense of "fair use" with regard to including OGC if a given product is not OGL compliant?
5) If a company were to give permission to use material for which that company does not have rights, does that mean that the permission is valid? Is it up to the product implementing said material to determine on it's own the legality of including such material?
6) Would I be mistaken in saying that as long as Wizards does not use OGC material they play by a different set of rules as the OGC publishers? If they do decide to include OGC content in a product they would have to make that product comply with the OGL? Would this be true even if a publisher gave WotC permission to include OGC in a closed product?
For example, if Publisher x released OGC y, WotC would have to release a product subject to the OGL if they included y in their product no matter what.
7) I would be interested to know if any publisher granted permission to a product publisher to use OGC material because they assumed that the product was OGL compliant, even if it wasn't. Can any publisher comment on that? (Note that this is not referring to PCGen per se. I see some other products that include OGC content from publishers.)
Follow up to that - if a non-compliant product includes OGC, can that damage the OGL itself? Clark discussed on another thread the dangers (to the secondary and tertiary publisher )of using secondary sources for a tertiary product, could this be along the same lines?
8) Question to the publishers - does WotC actually do any sort of compliancy certification for a given product?
If not, is it a double standard to expect such a thing for a software company?
Would WotC issuing a statement that says that software per se is not automatically non-compliant be sufficient, along with the standard protections afforded by the license, be sufficient for those of you hesitant to allow your material to be included in software?
Again, I certainly hold no animosity towards PCGen or any other product for that matter. I have seen several things bandied about and would like for some word from the important parties.
) and I do understand that everyone else is as well, and people are people and _DO_ make mistakes, it's how we handle making those mistakes that tells who is willing to live, learn, move on, from those that are simply around to cause problems. *shrug*
