Hello,
"Ryan S. Dancey" wrote:
> Open Gaming is >not< about "giving back to the community", just as Open
> Source/Free Software is not about "giving back to the community". Both
> engines of development are fired by an interest on the part of developers to
> improve an existing process, yes; but both are also driven forward by people
> who just want to >use< the fruits of that labor.
<<>>
> "Open" development projects succeed or fail, in the long term, by
> demonstrating improvement and iterative development. And that is why, after
> an initial period of learning how to use this new tool, the Mostly Open
> community will probably produce the work with the widest application and the
> biggest impact - because that work will be innovating faster than the other
> approaches.
I pretty much agreed or was neutral about the rest, but these two caught my eye.
You say that Open Gaming isn't about giving back to the community, but yet you
expect the mostly open community to produce the widest application and the
biggest impact. That can't happen unless the open community is constantly giving
back to the community. Expanding and growing only happens if there are people
contributing. How do you expect to keep people interested in producing for the
community if you have the marginally and closed communities not contributing
anything, not giving back to the community, but yet using everything?
Are you expecting the the mostly open community to support the other two? If you
are, you aren't going to have a mostly open community for long.
>just as Open
>Source/Free Software is not about "giving back to the community".
Perhaps not, but it is the glue that hold everything together.
Giving back to the community is why the license is viral in nature. That is why
the core is so strong, and it is why it will never die, with or without money.
It is why you have people giving away software after spending two years
developing it. Giving back to the community is a very real concept to the core
programmers in the movement. That is why the term "Leech" has such a strong
stigma attached to it in the open source community.
In fact, Stallman knew that that would be the most important part of his
movement if it was to succeed. The license makes sure that you will always be
giving back to the community every time you use it.
Open Source may not be about giving to the community. But the open source
movement would have crumbled a long time ago if it had not been a real part of
the movement.
Have Fun,
Darren
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For more information, please link to www.opengamingfoundation.org
