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Message: <blockquote data-quote="antpasq" data-source="post: 1233360" data-attributes="member: 9848">Wow!!!I just wanted to know what was going on. This subject is starting to look like the PCGen boards. I won't claim to be any smarter than the next person, but I am already lost after reading all the posts today. For the lay person, like myself, there is no difference between PCGen and CMP. Now some of you are going to say there is and that it's my problem for not seeing the difference. But way back when PCGen was on version 2, before WoTC threatened the existence of PCGen, there was no viable difference between PCGen and CMP. Most of use thought CMP put out PCGen. It then seemed to use that CMP entered into a coercive relationship with WoTC, whereby WoTC said that CMP could continue to make PCGen as long as CMP fixed E-Tools and started charging people for the datasets for PCGen. A lot of use felt betrayed that CMP entered into this relationship. It made no sense for CMP to fix a competitive program, especially one that sucked in comparision to PCGen. I won't even get into the debate about charging us for datasets. I have already paid for the books, why should I have to pay to use them again? Most of the players in my group own most of the books and are not allowed to use info from books that they do not own. So none of us would be using PCGen to access information that we already did not own. Now, would I have paid for a program that allowed me to use the d20 books in a different way? Yes. But we were never asked to pay for PCGen. But we are now being asked to pay for books that we already own. The debate now seems to be about greed and there does seem to be a conflict of interest. PCGen seeks to get publishers to make their material free for inclusion with PCGen whilst CMP seeks publishers who want to charge for their data. It is impossible for these two entities to operate under the same roof, with the same people, for the same end-user program. Once people start to see the profit to be made from their endeavors, it is almost impossible for them to then offer their services for free. And free is what PCgen was about from the beginning. I just downloaded the latest PCGen beta, v5.51. There is nothing to use without paying for the datasets. It seems that you cannot even create a character without buying the WoTC dataset. So, while PCGen is free, you can't use it until you buy a dataset. So much for free.</blockquote>

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