Darren wrote:
"Perhaps that is my problem. Perhaps I just am misunderstanding something.
If we
are part of the open gaming community, and closed content is not open. How
does
that help the open gaming community."
Actually, I think I see your issue. You equate something being closed as
not being of use to further development. To you, (since you're developing)
the only use in newly released products is in what they provide you to "work
from" in your developemnt. What you're missing here is that beyond those of
us who plan on making product and developing things, there are the
players/gamemasters who will purchase and use the content. If all of us
make known our connection to the community, it does nothing but serve
EVERYONE involved.
"It just seems to me that a closed content contributor and the whole concept
of
open gaming don't go very well. But maybe i am missing something. I'm
obviously
not in this for the money. So if someone could explain to me how using the
work
of others to make money without giving anything back to the open gaming
community is a good thing, I would really appreciate it."
Hopefully the above helped a little. (I won't hold my breath.) However,
let me note that making "great flipping wodges of cash" (to quote Edmund
Black Adder) is NOT the goal of most folks involved. It's the chance to
make SOME amount of recompense that drives this. Am I ever going to make
more with games than I do now testing software? Bloody unlikely. But I'd
like to see what happens if I do create and market something, certainly.
"All right, list all the contributions that a person contributes to the open
gaming community. Keep in mind that all this person is doing is taking other
peoples work, making money off of it, and then returning no open content in
return to the open community."
1) Increased awareness for the OGL, (and whatever other licenses, including
d20).
2) More material for the players who support OGL developers.
3) Additional advertising for other OGL developers. (Via links pages, etc.)
There are three in about a minute. I can do more if you need.
-Mathew Gray
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For more information, please link to www.opengamingfoundation.org
