Certainly don't take this as a screed for Closed gaming products - the more
Open the better in my opinion.
Here is an analogy that might help cut through some of the clutter.
The Apache HTTP server license is pretty widely regarded as an "Open Source"
license that conforms to the Debian Open Source guidelines; short of using
GPL, that's as "Open" as they get.
There are >a lot< of people who run Apache, and use it to host web sites
containing proprietary web content. A >lot< of people.
Those people are one of the reasons (one might argue "the" reason) that
Apache is the most successful web server solution in the world. The more
people who use it, the more bugs are discovered and fixed, the more features
are added, and the more developers are exposed to the code. It is not
important that most of the Apache users don't "contribute" in the sense of
writing new mods or bug fixes - they're "contributing" by building the
network externality that drives the value of the whole Apache undertaking.
The same thing with PERL, with sendmail, with BIND, etc.
Taking someone else's Open work and republishing unchanged it is also a
vital and important part of the development of that network. It happens all
the time in the Open Source community. There are archives of open source
software sold in most major software distribution points (bookstores,
computer stores, universities, etc.) Most of those disks are produced by
people who are adding little, if any content; they are just aggregating,
packaging, and distributing. But don't kid yourself, they are still >adding
value< by extending the reach of those programs and by exposing new people
to the paradigm.
Heck, one of the most successful Open Source distribution systems is
O'Reilly & Associates (and few, if any people in the Open Source development
community cast aspersions on O'R&A!). They combine "shovelware"
distributions of various Open Source software projects with completely
closed and proprietary books (though those books may include Open or copyrig
ht-relaxed source-code sections). They're essentially doing what a lot of
people are talking about here on the list - taking Open stuff commonly
available, and adding closed, proprietary content to it to make their value
proposition different than competitors. The result is both better
documentation (or >any< documentation in some cases!) and a wider
distribution of the various software packages O'R&A supports.
If you believe the guts of Eric Raymond's essays about Open Source
development (and I do), you don't have to worry about the engine of
creativity and the spirit of contribution - if the project is interesting
enough to attract developers, both problems will take care of themselves.
And if it isn't, the project doesn't deserve to survive as an Open project
anyway.
Ryan
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