> Ryan S. Dancey
>
> In short, the OGL is not a good software license. I think that an OGL
> project, combined with an OSI certified software license is a viable
> project, because the access to the sourcecode provided by the software
> license will remove the problems with OGC being identified.
>
> If I were a publisher, I would not rely on the OGL for a software product,
> especially not a game.
How about this as a supposition:
The OGL is *INTENTIONALLY* not a good software license.
However, it *IS* possible to make proprietary software that uses OGC. One
way is to make the code OGC so you no longer have to worry about marking
where the game rules end and where the software rules begin. In that
situation you claim graphics other creative elements named in 1(e) of the
OGL as PI and leave everything else as OGC. The BINARY code could then be
distributed based on OGC source code, which would be closely held. The OGL
makes no provision for requiring the distribution of a document, so while
the intermediate source code would be OGC it would not necessarily be
available to consumers. In that situation, the binary code might as well be
PI, because nobody is going to be able to make any derivative works out of
it even though they might be legally entitled to do so.
Let me be clear again - this is the wrong battle for WotC to fight. They
are better off embracing the software community instead of snubbing it.
-Brad
