Wow, I guess it might be a good idea to move this list to a different
account. I just spent my first three hours of work wading through the 70 or
80 messages from this weekend! :)
I am *amazed* at the people who seem to believe that people producing
products should do so without protecting their content. Furthermore, I am
dismayed that I hear people complaining about this movement not being "open
enough" for them. I think most of you are forgetting when TSR used to go
after EVERYONE who came close to touching their properties on the Internet
(and elsewhere) . . .
You compare this to software, when it's not. Software=Big Industry. Write
popular open-source freeware software, add said item to your portfolio,
Company-X hires you for six figures. Victory to the programmer. Write
popular open gaming product and sell it, content is all the sudden grabbed
by 3 other people, who all release further products . . . victory nobody . .
. market doesn't support 4 people releasing content based upon original good
idea . . . ideas conflict . . . consumers get fed up and buy content from
someone else. (NOWHERE in here does anyone get hired for 6 figures.)
I cannot count the number of friends I have who wrote software in an attempt
to a) make a simple task easier (product not released), b) as a school
project (not released again), or c) to gain recognition/noteriety (and some
of them make a fair bit more coin than I do because of it) . . .
In addition, when Martin notes a product which could totally be viable (an
adventure book) he gets nothing but a response which summed up is:
"capitalism is wrong, this person is an unimaginitive leech" . . .
So, you're telling me, that if I put in 2 days of work on maps alone in CC2
(which is not "easy" in any sense, 48 hours of mapping can make your eyes
bleed searching for leaking multipolys), another 7 days of writing up the
background, plot, and flavor text, then take 5 more days adding in all the
appropriate statistics for the creatures (and rules needed, plus references
to various books), THEN I spend another 3 days proofreading, editing, and
doing layout . . . after ALL THAT, I'm a leech if I don't open up my
product?
In the most direct way: screw that.
I spend 2.5 MONTHS of regular 40 hour weeks on this product (the 8 adventure
book we've discussed, of course) and you tell me that I'm a leech and that I
should be ashamed because I want to have closed content, thus protecting my
blood, sweat, and tears? No. Not on your life. Period.
This is not GNU. This is not Linux. This is d20 (or OGL) and it's NOT the
same.
-Mathew Gray
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For more information, please link to www.opengamingfoundation.org
