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

Thu Oct 10 02:35:17 UTC 2013

Thanks Mike, that's an interesting read. My responses are inline.

*Chris Sakkas
**Admin of the FOSsil Bank wiki <http://fossilbank.wikidot.com/> and the Living
Libre blog <http://www.livinglibre.com> and Twitter
feed<https://twitter.com/#%21/living_libre>
.*

On 10 October 2013 04:44, Mike Linksvayer <ml at gondwanaland.com> wrote:

> A non-lawyer friend who has been following game licensing for a long
> time, further background on the Open Game License, forwarded with
> permission.
>
> Conclusion:
>
> [quoting OD] “A piece of data or content is open if anyone is free to
> use, reuse,
> and redistribute it — subject only, at most, to the requirement to
> attribute and/or share-alike.”
>
> I think the OGL was meant to fulfill that, but because it was heavily
> applied to the d20 system, it was never applied by itself, so we don't
> have a lot of use cases to go on.
>

There are two separate uses of the term 'd20 System':

   1. The underlying rule system beneath D&D 3rd ed, *Pathfinder, *and many
   other games
   2. The registered trademark and logo intended to indicate compatibility
   with the underlying rule system

For most of the time that the OGL has been in use, the d20 System brand has
been basically worthless. It was undermined by shoddy quality control, so
people preferred the free-from-any-quality-control OGL 'brand'. Since the
release of 4th ed back in 2008, the number of new works released under the
d20 System trademark licence would be minimal.

> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: maiki <maiki at interi.org>
> Date: Tue, Oct 8, 2013 at 11:52 PM
> Subject: Re: Numenera licensing
> To: Mike Linksvayer <ml at gondwanaland.com>
>
>
> I see you folks found http://www.earth1066.com/D20FAQ.htm, which has
> been a defining document for folks looking to use the OGL.
>
> D&D 3.x was superseded by Pathfinder, which used the OGL to pretty much
> take over that version when it was abandoned by WOTC with D&D 4.
> Pathfinder is created by Paizo, which additionally has a community use
> guideline doc at http://paizo.com/paizo/about/communityuse. It has
> caused a lot of discussion, because it is a way for people to take the
> OGC and use it for things that the OGL doesn't exactly allow, or at
> least that is what folks think. My opinion: it is a lost cause, because
> anything created in that scene is tainted, and it doesn't follow any
> sane guidelines that I know (like the CC licenses, actually).
>

I'm not sure what maiki is referring to here; I've not heard of any use of
OGC outside the bounds of the OGL from the Pathfinder community.

> Not directly related, but an interesting aside, Kenzer & Company
> challenged WOTC when they switched to D&D 4 by releasing a supplement
> that was compatible with D&D 4, but didn't have a Gaming System License
> (which is not open at all). That step made people question whether
> accepting the terms of the OGL were worth the trouble, because there
> hadn't been a public example of someone applying nominative use (and I
> don't still don't quite understand it myself).
>
> My own opinion is that it is only applicable to very specific cases,
> like favoring WOTC's monopoly of the d20 system (which is culture at
> this point, since rules be facts and all that). Honestly, like a hard
> drive that keeps giving errors, I just gave up on the OGL and replaced
> it with a new license(s). BY, BY-SA and 0 for me.
>

I'm not sure how the OGL contributes to WOTC's monopoly of the d20 System -
except that because the OGL purports to limit the use of trademarks it may
stop products from advertising their compatibility even if that
advertisement were non-infringing in the absence of such a licence.

> Pathfinder keeps OGL alive, almost single-handed. We are getting big
> systems coming out under CC-BY (Dungeon World and Fate Core, for
> example), Kickstarted with built-in audiences, so I think it is only a
> matter of time that those systems encourage a shift in popular
> licenses. Despite how participatory role-playing is, very few people
> license anything for commercial use, and the d20 market isn't growing
> anymore (according to hobby shop owners and DriveThruRPG annual reports
> for the last several years). The nature of the game is that you get a
> bunch of books, share it with your group, and then don't invest in the
> product line until it is rebooted in 5-25 years.
>

I don't agree that Pathfinder keeps the OGL alive almost single-handedly (a
quick skim of RPGNow's new releases shows mostly system agnostic, with
about as many ebooks supporting non-Pathfinder OGL games as supporting
Pathfinder), but even if it does, that still makes it a noteworthy licence.
Pathfinder is the world's biggest tabletop roleplaying game at this point.

Is your friend excluding Pathfinder from the 'd20 market'? Because from
2008, D&D has been non-OGL and from about 2010 Pathfinder (which is OGL)
has out-performed D&D. The d20 market might not be growing from its 2002
heyday, but what about since 2009?

> Dungeon World had a new version of the game released before the
> Kickstarter was finished, and Fate Core is the basis of about 4 high
> profile Kickstarter campaigns right now, with plenty of others released
> in a hobbyist effort, albeit polished, already. The prior version of
> Fate was released under the OGL, and had less games based on it than
> that in a decade.
>

The current version of Fate is dual licensed under both the OGL and CC BY,
as is the DramaSystem SRD (a smaller, but also Kickstarted, release from
this year). I prefer CC BY/BY-SA to the OGL, but the latter is still a live
licence.

> CC licenses, for all the kerfuffle we discuss, are pretty easy to
> understand compared to the OGL, which was written by Hasbro lawyers,
> the makers of toys based on cartoons created to sell toys. No one is
> playing that game, so it is a dying legacy.
>
> And wow, sorry for the verbosity. I should blog about this more, I
> guess. ^_^
>
> I like building websites, but it is tied for what I would do if money
> were no option. I would very much like to publish an RPG setting,
> something that incorporates the same things I use websites for, to
> highlight and provide commentary on inequality and human nature, but
> you know, with magic and stuff.
>
> I thought that I had a chance when I found the OGL so many years ago.
> It was like an open invitation to create, but I soon found that
> producing a product that was compatible with its terms were difficult,
> because nearly every product sold also took on the d20 Trademark
> Licence. Everyone was convinced that without that little square logo
> you couldn't move books, and at the time they were probably correct (I
> can't be sure).
>
> “A piece of data or content is open if anyone is free to use, reuse,
> and redistribute it — subject only, at most, to the requirement to
> attribute and/or share-alike.”
>
> I think the OGL was meant to fulfill that, but because it was heavily
> applied to the d20 system, it was never applied by itself, so we don't
> have a lot of use cases to go on.
>

I answered this earlier, but to reiterate: the d20 System logo and
trademark are these days actively avoided rather than being seen as an
essential part of the OGL licensing process.

>
> maiki
>
>
> On Tue 08 Oct 2013 10:13:09 PM PDT, Mike Linksvayer wrote:
> > A little interesting, I appreciate the fair evaluation of the license
> > and what it means, even though far from free, not even a public license.
> >
> > Do you have an opinion on the Open Game License and how it is used?
> > See thread at
> > http://lists.okfn.org/pipermail/od-discuss/2013-October/thread.html#620
> >
> > If you feel like/have time for sharing your opinion...
> >
> > Mile
> >
> >
> > On Tue, Oct 8, 2013 at 9:47 PM, maiki <maiki at interi.org
> > <mailto:maiki at interi.org>> wrote:
> >
> >     http://walkingmind.evilhat.com/2013/10/08/numenera-licensing/
> >
> >     Might interest ya, this is my primary interest in licensing outside
> of
> >     software; role-playing games are inherently participatory and
> >     encourage
> >     "remix" (referred to throughout history as storytelling). Rob lays
> out
> >     good points on why someone licenses their game, and is also one of
> the
> >     designers of Fate Core, which was Kickstarted and released under
> >     CC-BY.
> >
> >     maiki
> >
> >
>
> _______________________________________________
> od-discuss mailing list
> od-discuss at lists.okfn.org
> http://lists.okfn.org/mailman/listinfo/od-discuss
> Unsubscribe: http://lists.okfn.org/mailman/options/od-discuss
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.okfn.org/pipermail/od-discuss/attachments/20131010/30a9493b/attachment-0001.html>