On Fri, 20 Oct 2000, Faustus von Goethe wrote:
> >From: "Alec A. Burkhardt" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> >Nothing here provides an incentive
> >for the publisher to do your work for you in creating this database.
>
> Where in Gods creation did anyone get the idea this was what I was
> suggesting? All >I< did was ask if people were going to SRD their own
> material?
Ok, so once again, you are responding to my posts without reading them
fully, now I understand. I _NEVER_ said that you were suggesting this;
although a publisher creating an SRD is in fact doing a good portion of
the work for anyone creating a database. I wasn't even responding to a
post by YOU! Others made the suggestion, and in fact argued that it was
in the publisher's interest (with a tone that made it sound as if any
publisher not doing so was not fully supporting Open Gaming), to create
and provide such pure OGC content only versions of their work. All I'm
saying is that none of the arguments advanced have shown any reason for a
publisher to create such a product.
In fact, the profit motive itself makes it distinctly not in a publisher's
interest to create such pure OGC documents. Publishers of for profit
products want people to buy their products for the full slate of reason,
including the use of their OGC by other developers. Giving away OGC
content for free is NOT a requirement of the Open Gaming concept. The
Wotc example is no better than comparing apples to oranges. WotC isn't
currently producing any mixed content. In fact they aren't producing any
for profit OGL material. They are releasing a single free OGL product
that they hope will encourage others to produce more OGL material which
will then drive sales of their non-OGL product. If you were merely
stating that companies translating their system to OGL (or D20) should
release a distilled SRD upon which others could build you'd have a valid
analogy. But the same does not hold true for items such as modules as or
collections of items.
> >I'm not arguing against the database idea, Faust. My posts were about the
> >argument that some have put forth that Publishers should provided their
> >OGC content to database providers (assumingly in the format that database
> >publisher desires).
>
> I certainly wouldn't support that. But an SRD that "distances the Open
> Content from the Closed" as suggested before seemed to me to be a measure
> that a prudent company would WANT to take to ensure there were no mistakes.
Why would the company want to ensure there were no mistakes? This isn't
something that is relevant to the initial producer. It is the
responsibility of those using OGC material to ensure that they don't make
mistakes. There is no negative for the original producer if the secondary
user makes a mistake; the original producer informs that person, who
either fixes the error or gets sued for violating the OGL. The only
responsibility the original producer has is to accurately identify their
OGC content in the product. If your going to build a database (or use
their OGC content in another project), it is your responsibility to
accurately cull that OGC from what has been published.
alec
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