fnwc
Explorer
Apparently Masterplan has an API to allow the development of extensions. It wouldn't surprise me if someone else wrote one for the next version to continue Compendium support.
What will Masterplan be after the C&D?
- Thread starter doctorhook
- Start date
Nice find... I heard about the post on a coding forum. There is talk about taking the files apart by some of the crews. I hope it does not disrupt Masterplan if CB has to alter it's code in future versions.
Piratecat
Sesquipedalian
Kafen, Kurtomatic, please see my warnings earlier in the thread. I'm glad you've seemed to have worked it out, but we don't need the insult-slinging. If you can't make your point without trying to rip someone a new one, you're better off reporting the post and not replying.
tomBitonti
Hero
Hi,
Can someone say what was the "magic sauce" that made Masterplan as useful as folks are raving about?
Also, I want to point out that one of the rights of a copyright holder is to limit the pace of release of their material. Think of a band releasing one track every six months, while having a cache of a dozen songs still to release. As a fan, you may be rather irked, but pacing the release is a key right provided by a copyright.
That means that Hasbro can release tools (that use their copywritten material) at a pace of their choosing.
Now, what would be interesting would be if someone created a new set of classes, powers, monsters, and treasure, that used the basic game rules, but was free of copywritten material. You might be able to do that using a clean room approach, with a specification team reading the Hasbro D20 material, condensing it into a set of specs, then have a second team create new descriptions based on the specs.
As an aside, when did PirateCat get GREEN text for his name? (Cool green shade, there.)
Thx!
TomB
Can someone say what was the "magic sauce" that made Masterplan as useful as folks are raving about?
Also, I want to point out that one of the rights of a copyright holder is to limit the pace of release of their material. Think of a band releasing one track every six months, while having a cache of a dozen songs still to release. As a fan, you may be rather irked, but pacing the release is a key right provided by a copyright.
That means that Hasbro can release tools (that use their copywritten material) at a pace of their choosing.
Now, what would be interesting would be if someone created a new set of classes, powers, monsters, and treasure, that used the basic game rules, but was free of copywritten material. You might be able to do that using a clean room approach, with a specification team reading the Hasbro D20 material, condensing it into a set of specs, then have a second team create new descriptions based on the specs.
As an aside, when did PirateCat get GREEN text for his name? (Cool green shade, there.)
Thx!
TomB
Library files are what people are asking for on the dark side of the internet - data file exports shared by end users on torrent and hosted on file sharing servers. If you dig into the public trackers, most of the traffic centers around the latest release of the torrents from end users.
It's a good suite - I will use it when I build classes for my 4e western zombie one off game. It fits the campaign managing aspects of 4e speaking for myself on Masterplan.
doctorhook
Legend
It's an encounter builder and campaign builder, tailored to 4E. It's really pretty easy to use (compared to some fanmade tools available). Honestly, the best advice I can give you is to search for the YouTube videos of someone demonstrating the features of it. Alternatively, you could try to find someone who's got a copy of the most recent version to share with you.
Absolutely. And any other programmer can release his tools, like Masterplan, at a pace of his choosing. That competition might force Hasbro to change their pace. Competition is generally regarded as a good thing.
The crux might be that, but the legality of it is obvious. Masterplan has done nothing illegal and I cannot believe that people imply that and even seem to defend the draconian behaviour of WotC. The program is a tool that allows you to access and use data from a service you are paying for. Copyright only forbids users of that tool to share that data with the public. In no way is the maker of the tool doing anything wrong.
Look up an old courtcase of Sony vs. the entertainment industry regarding the legality of VCRs. If the tool has a legitimate use, it cannot be infringing Copyright in itself. Same thing here.
So WotC is just using its (considerable) legal muscle to bully a small developer. Not cool. I call foul on WotC for this.
Way ahead of you.
To the best of my knowledge, no-one outside of WotC and the developer of Masterplan have seen the C&D letter, so claiming that WotC is stating that there is some infringement of copyright is a pretty big guess.
As I stated above, it is my belief (and I have heard no reason from WotC behind the particulars of why they sent the C&D letter) that WotC sent the C&D because MP (a) automates the access and saving of Compendium data; and (b) makes it trivial to share that data with other non-DDI subscribers.
Chances are very good that the next version of Masterplan (which he is working on) will simply have the ability to automatically flip through the compendium and save it all to the users HD removed.
Kurtomatic
First Post
Honestly, I have no idea whether Masterplan is actually infringing on a legal statute-level or not. No clue. So I'm not going to disagree with your assertion. However, as Mudbunny suggested, this could all be a matter of an end-user agreement, which may be problematical itself, but would also be a matter of civil contract law, rather than copyright infringement.
Web service APIs, due to their exposed public nature, always have strings attached. Whether its Amazon or the USPS, when you connect to someone's server to use their interfaces, there will always be some kind of agreement in play.
There is also a difference between white-knighting WotC, and attempting to rationalize their behavior.
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