> MS was trying to alter Java so that it would be usable,
>period. As I recall, Sun refused to cooperate with MS --
>withholding code, stalling, purposely giving them flawed code,
>and generally giving them the runaround until they finally did
>what they had to in order to release _anything_.
hehe.. that should have felt familiar to MS
I think the biggest beef people have is simply the fact that Open Source
drives are much more entertaining when led by a rogue free-spirit rather
than big corp.
Unfortunately, without Ryan becoming a rock-star, hackerdude, open-source
media mogul, this effort needs the power of WotC to really make it work.
The question of what WotC decides after people have signed up may be a
non-issue... this is only helpful to WotC and really does a lot to change
people's perceptions from older TSR actions that were contra-customer. I
can't see WotC having a problem being supportive of the licensees under this
arrangement. The question is, has WotC even signed off on this? and which
part of WotC has? I know Ryan pushes uphill on a bit of this within his own
org and the more support we can provide for him the better, IMHO.
After a few successful d20 products that are relatively "well-behaved"
without blatant copyright problems, etc. will be very beneficial to the
cause and will clear the air on all of this. I know IP is really important,
valuable, etc.... but what are we really risking here? It's not like I have
a D&D franchise with a $50mm market cap.... If WotC doesn't play nice in the
sandbox, I lose something that took some time and money and the open-source
thing falls apart in bickering and finger pointing. I just don't think
it'll happen that way and I'm willing to pitch into the pile to see how it
works.
Best of luck,
Jared Nielsen
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