Re: [Ogf-l] Re: The Punch Bag has joined!

[HUDarklord]

In a message dated 1/27/03 2:33:30 PM Eastern Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:


<<On the other
hand, those specifically looking for OGC material are probably savvy enough
to understand what makes OGC and what doesn't.
>>


The problem with the approach of "anything derived from OGC is OGC" is that LOTS of things could be OGC that aren't inherently obvious.  Examples, stories, names, text blocks, etc.  Things that were created from wholecloth, for which there's no clear methodology to identify it as a reader.

I think you need NOT be able to easily track down the original source from an OGC declaration (indeed the OGL makes that a bit tricky), other than brute force looking up everything in Section 15.  However, you should similarly not HAVE TO have all the section 15 resources to figure out what is and isn't OGC in a particular publication.

I really question who this OGC declaration is for, in your mind...  Is it primarily Mongoose?  Or is it primarily the customers of Mongoose?  For peers in the industry?

<<
> somewhat unclear -- it seems to me that the only way anyone would know what
> you consider to be OGC or not would be to contact you directly.
Which you are more than welcome to do.
>>



While I think it'd be nice if we all had a "contact me for additional info or additional rights" policy, fundamentally the OGL is supposed to make that less of an absolute necessity.  I think people are looking for you to either OGC everything except your trademarks and art if you want to use a boilerplate OGC declaration that is unvarying from book to book, or for you to not use a simply boilerplate OGC declaration and instead rely on one targeted to each individual release you make so that we don't have to second guess things so much.

I think the nature of this license is that there will frequently be some room for second guessing, but why not reduce that as much as one can reasonably reduce it.

Lee