Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Sanglorian" data-source="post: 5931512" data-attributes="member: 83822">Those of us who support open licensing don't believe that it gives away a company's main source of income. It doesn't seem to have given away Paizo's main source of income (or the incomes of the several other Pathfinder publishers who volunteer their content to be put on the Pathfinder SRD), or Green Ronin's (True20, Mutants & Masterminds), or Evil Hat Productions' (FATE), and I don't believe that it gave away Wizards' main source of income either (the 3E years were good years for Wizards). 2. What sort of hard evidence are you looking for? We don't have access to sales figures for D&D, either during the third or the fourth editions. We can point to dozens of successful companies that license their games, their software, their books, etc., under open licences. We can point to the extraordinary growth of the world's second-best selling or first-best selling RPG, Pathfinder, and the fact that Paizo is very generous with its open content. We can point to the boom during the d20 era. None of this is evidence of causation, but how could we—as consumers and commentators—prove a causal link?3. I think your proposal for a new OGL begs the question. It assumes that it is in Wizards' best interests to create a locked-down public copyright licence rather than an open licence. I don't agree that your three criteria (no competing games, no repackaged rules, no competing electronic tools) are necessary—or even desirable—for Wizards' interests to be protected.But I think we already have a public copyright licence that fits your requirements: the GSL. I just think that the GSL did not serve Wizards' interests as well as the OGL did.I see it more as saying, 'I love Hyundai cars, but if they don't let other companies make wheels that fit my car, I won't buy a Hyundai.' Sure, my Hyundai will work after purchase, and maybe Hyundai's wheels will always be better than their competitors' wheels. Maybe I'll get a new car before I want new wheels. But if I'm going to invest a lot of money in a car/roleplaying game, I want the security of knowing that support material can be created by third parties.</blockquote>

Verification