"Ryan S. Dancey" wrote:
> If Wizards did gain an unfair bias on the Foundation web site, a rival web
> site could easily be created that would reflect the breadth and scope of the
> Open Game movement, and there would swiftly be a movement away from the OGF
> site as a "reference". Since that potential is so real and so easy, there's
> no good reason for the OGF site to ever develop a bias.
Theory of network externalities. The bias has to be extreme and
recognised
before anyone will go to the bother and even then The Big lie effect and
being
first is to its advantage. Its not as if such a bias would be in simple
comparables like book prices, and Amazon is still popular despite sites
that will automatically undercut them.
Whether we believe you would knowingly engage in such behaviour is a
matter
for our own personal judgement based on what we have heard you say and
achieve.
> Due to the way the Open Gaming License is constructed, even if at some point
> in the future someone running the Foundation changed the terms to give WotC
> some bias, people would be able to just ignore the new version and keep
> using the version that is totally open - therefore, there's no reason to
> fiddle with the terms anyway.
Not totally since at the moment there is no way of insisting that people
cannot
uses subsequent versions of the license with material created under
earlier ones.
i.e if I write something under license version 1 there is nothing to
stop version
2 giving additional rights to people using that item which I did not
intend, for
example in a paranoid view giving WoTC rights to copyright attached
items justified
by the theory you have stated on derived works and Stallone vs
Anderson.
> I'm researching the Apache Group, and I think in the long run something
> similar to the Apache Group organization may be the most suitable for the
> Open Gaming community. Until some more concrete decisions can be made,
> we'll all just accept the mutual burden of keeping the information on the
> OGF web site fair and impartial and worry about the potential future
> problems later.
The OGF needs to be seen to be far and impartial as well as actually be
fair
and impartial. Without that all the rest of this is of little value.
That unfortunately means dealing wwith the mental stigma of being
associated with
Hasbro, WoTC and TSR, some personnel of whish have had what is believed
to be evil
intentions with respect to Intellectual property or gaming as a hobby
rather than
an industry.
The Clue case [especially considering its UK trademark of Cluedo] and
The Time
of the MPGN Purge being examples of things which while they may have no
direct
relationship to either you or anyone woring at WotC are seen of examples
of how
Hasbro and Lawyers involved with D&D have behaved in the past.
After those, telling people its all fine and the OGL will make things
perfect for
them, leads to a belief that you are trying to pull a fast one. The
linguistic
manipulations which accompanied the release of news over 3rd ed. [not
this century
and then well August 2000 isn't this century, while at least arguable
does not
encourage belief that what you say should not be analysed as carefully
as anything
an Aes Sedai says.]
It comes down to trust, and unfortunately trust in Hasbro's legal and
accounting
departments as well as in you.
While I trust you to tell Hasbro they copuldn't win a case against
someone using
the OGL, There is the doubt that that would stop them since forcing that
individual
to conceed by running up legal bills appears to be one of Hasbro's
previous tactics.
Adam
None of the above should be taken as a personnal attack on any
individual named.
Aes Sedai were created by Robert Jordan in his wheel of time novels and
are used
only as a comparitive review item.
:/
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