[od-discuss] Getting the Open Game License accepted under the Open Definition

Thu Jul 11 15:36:56 UTC 2013

Hi Chris, thanks for the writeup.

If we did approve this, it'd probably go in the little used category.

One comment inline below, but I'd like discussion from others before
moving ahead. Maybe Rob Myers will appear. :)

Mike

ps Just noticed another old license,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_gaming#October_Open_Gaming_License
though I don't know if there's a copy of it online. Just a curiosity.

On Thu, Jul 11, 2013 at 1:30 AM, Chris Sakkas <sanglorian at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi folks,
>
> I thought I'd take another shot at this now that I've seen the License
> Approval Process on the Open Definition site.
>
> The Open Game License: http://www.opengamingfoundation.org/ogl.html
>
> Rationale: The licence was created to put the rules to the then newly
> released third edition of the tabletop roleplaying game Dungeons & Dragons
> under a licence that would both allow third party publishers to create
> supplementary works and protect the 'product identity' of the
> thirty-year-old Dungeons & Dragons brand.
>
> Specific to an Organization/Place/Jurisdiction: No. It was designed for use
> with text but has been used with images, and it has been used by hundreds of
> publishers and individuals.
>
> Compare and contrast:
>
> Probably the most useful comparison is between the OGL and the OD-compliant
> GNU Free Documentation License. The GNU FDL has optional sections that make
> the licence non-free. Mike Linksvayer suggested that Product Identity in the
> Open Game License plays the same role: when exercised, Product Identity
> renders a use non-free/libre/open, but when Product Identity is not
> exercised, it is free/libre/open.

I said this with a lot of uncertainty. :)

> Benefits versus licence proliferation:
>
> Ideally, the licence would be deprecated and all the works under the licence
> would be ported over to CC BY-SA. Unfortunately, the cat is out of the bag
> and the OGL remains the licence of choice for many tabletop game publishers.
>
> Compatibility:
>
> I doubt the Open Game License is compatible with the Creative Commons
> licences with Attribution clauses. The Open Game License requires a very
> specific and limited form of attribution.
>
> Public drafting process:
>
> None. Done in house by Wizards of the Coast.
>
> Previous discussion on this list:
>
> http://lists.okfn.org/pipermail/od-discuss/2012-December/000227.html
> http://lists.okfn.org/pipermail/od-discuss/2012-December/000228.html
> http://lists.okfn.org/pipermail/od-discuss/2012-May/000149.html
>
> ---
>
> Thanks folks, it would be good to see a final decision on this one way or
> the other. I think the Open Game License is not only currently relevant and
> of historical importance, it's also a case study that let's us test and
> explore where the boundaries of the Open Definition are.
>
> It will also have practical consequences. I currently index the >100 OGL
> licensed works as free/libre/open on the FOSsil Bank
> (http://fossilbank.wikidot.com/licence:ogl/), but would switch to indexing
> them as proprietary if that's the way this list goes.
>
> Cheers,
> Chris
>
> Chris Sakkas
> Admin of the FOSsil Bank wiki and the Living Libre blog and Twitter feed.
>
>
> On 4 December 2012 09:53, Chris Sakkas <sanglorian at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> Hi Mike,
>>
>> Thanks for following this up!
>>
>> As far as I understand, Product Identity is not sticky in the same way
>> that the OGL is. If you use content under the OGL (work 1), you have to
>> re-license it under the OGL (for work 2). However, you do not need to
>> declare the Product Identity of work 1 in work 2. That means if someone
>> creates work 3 from work 2, they are not bound by the Product Identity of
>> work 1. (If they are creating work 3 from work 1 too, then they would be).
>>
>> Here's an example:
>>
>> In Dungeons & Dragons there's a monster, the beholder (a multi-eyed orb
>> monster). It is Product Identity. If you were creating a work from the
>> System Reference Document, you couldn't use the term 'beholder'. However, if
>> you were creating a work (work 3) from a work (work 2) that was itself
>> created from the System Reference Document (work 1), you could. This would
>> allow you to create a NoX RPG (NoX had a similar but different monster
>> called a beholder).
>>
>> At least, that's my interpretation. The alternative would be that every
>> time you created a derivative of a work, you would need to identify the
>> Product Identity of every work that that work was a derivative of.
>>
>> Therefore, it shouldn't be too hard to find (or create) works without
>> Product Identity, even if they are derived from works with Product Identity.
>>
>> But I am not a lawyer, so take all this with a grain of salt.
>>
>> Cheers,
>>
>> Chris Sakkas
>> Admin of the FOSsil Bank wiki and the Living Libre blog and Twitter feed.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On 4 December 2012 09:15, Mike Linksvayer <ml at gondwanaland.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> Months ago Chris Sakkas wrote to this list re the subject
>>> http://lists.okfn.org/pipermail/od-discuss/2012-May/000149.html and I
>>> didn't see any followup.
>>>
>>> I suggest http://www.opengamingfoundation.org/ogl.html *might* be Open
>>> Knowledge Definition compliant, with the proviso that no "Product
>>> Identity" is defined (akin to FDL with no invariant sections etc). But
>>> I'm not at all certain.
>>>
>>> This is an old license (2000). It has been discussed thoroughly
>>> elsewhere, though I don't have a specific reference. Does anyone? Does
>>> anyone know of important uses free of "Product Identity"?
>>>
>>> Mike
>>
>>
>
>
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