License

[Trifletraxor]

A really big issue to get over with first is how we would license the work.

Gwenthia uses a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike license for the material available at their website (will this continue to be the case for Gwenthia, or will the following publications be copyrighted Tom?).

That license allows people to share and distribute the work as they like as long as it's done noncommercially, and that any derivative work can be made as long as it is released under the same license. The original creator can make a commercial product for it though.

I think that license probably work very well for Gwenthia, as it's developed by a closed group of people. It does stop others from making professional products for the world though, so I think the best license if we want to make a truly open world is the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike license. With this one, anyone can use the material, for commercial and uncommercial project, free distribution, but very limited rights for those who develope it. Anyone who develope more for this setting would then have to release it under the same license.

I'm not sure how the OGL lisence work. Does it give any advantages? Anyone familiar with any other "some rights reserved" license?

Maybe the best would be a license that allowed a limited copyright, in which the author would retain the commercial rights for original work f.ex. 5 years, after which it went over to the CC license above. Commercial derivative work should be allowed in the meantime though. That way you would make people able to make commercial products with some rights, but without stopping the creative process of others in the meantime.

There a defference between project 1 & 2 though. Project one, created by many people cooperating should probably have the most limited license. Those settings that are created by individual members for the shared universe project should probably be allowed to have a bit stricter license, with the commercial rights, if that's what they would want.

Opinions?

SGL.

[soltakss]

What you want is the most open possible licence.

That way, if someone writes something for the shared world and then wants to make it available to other games, say Mongoose RQ, then they could use Mongoose's OGL for the RQ part and this licence for the shared world part with no problems.

What you don't want is for people to be unable to share the world with other games.

Why would people want to use RQM with the world? Because they might want to use rules from RQM or extracts from settings already covered by an OGL. So, someone using Legendary Abilties or RQ-style magic might want to use the OGL.

Should there be a problem with having multiple licences for a particular piece of work in a shared world? I doubt it and I'd hope there wouldn't be.

Perhaps you could have one licence covering the extra rules and another covering the setting.

[tzunder]

I actually agree and would go for the fullest and free est CC licence or OGL.
OGL is good if you want to integrate with Mongoose RuneQuest, although you'll need to be careful not to actually integrate any copyrighted material from Chaosium into the Open Game Content by mistake. GORE is a good basis, since it is very well licensed under OGL. Problem is is isn't BRP as write by Chaosium. All of this would be so easily solved if only Chaosium would create a core SRD and release it under OGL.

To my mind release all content and new stuff under the widest attribution CC licence. It doesn't stop anyone doing anything with it, but still give credit to the original authors.

Let's face it, we won't make money, so let's share..

[Trifletraxor]

Originally Posted by soltakss

What you want is the most open possible licence.

Fully agree, but it might stop some people from contributing if they have to release all their rights for a setting they have made all by themself (for the shared universe) or from making people make commercial products for the world for the shared world. I think those who contribute entire settings for the shared universe should be able to chose to go for the noncommercial CC license if they want. For the shared world, I think maybe a CC license which allow full commercial use also would be the best way to stimulate new material.

That way, if someone writes something for the shared world and then wants to make it available to other games, say Mongoose RQ, then they could use Mongoose's OGL for the RQ part and this licence for the shared world part with no problems.

Hmm... With the CC license, you couldn't add the OGL license on top of it when doing derivative work, as that would restrict the use further. You're bringing up a valid point there.

Perhaps you could have one licence covering the extra rules and another covering the setting.

That might be a good solution.

GORE is a good basis, since it is very well licensed under OGL. Problem is is isn't BRP as write by Chaosium. All of this would be so easily solved if only Chaosium would create a core SRD and release it under OGL.

That would be great, but there's currently no indications that it is going to happen.

To my mind release all content and new stuff under the widest attribution CC licence. It doesn't stop anyone doing anything with it, but still give credit to the original authors.

Not even include the share alike?

SGL.

[Atgxtg]

Well, I believe the way the OGL lisence works is that not everything is open. In most OGL games there are certain things that are not part of the OGL. That is why the SRD is different from the product. For instance MRQ is open, but Gloanthan MRQ stuff isn't. We'd can just do the same.

I would suggest not going with creative commons just because we can't license the BRP stuff, and would need to go with OGL to use RQ anyway, and a second lisence would complicate things.


But I for one am more concerned with getting something off the ground that intellectual property rights for something that won't be generating a lot of money for any of us anyway. We'd have better odds of making money off a lottery ticket.

[Trifletraxor]

Originally Posted by Atgxtg

Well, I believe the way the OGL lisence works is that not everything is open. In most OGL games there are certain things that are not part of the OGL. That is why the SRD is different from the product. For instance MRQ is open, but Gloanthan MRQ stuff isn't. We'd can just do the same.

OGL have the product identity, which is a pretty strong copyright the author can put on anything that isn't pure rules.

I would suggest not going with creative commons just because we can't license the BRP stuff, and would need to go with OGL to use RQ anyway, and a second lisence would complicate things.

Whe can license the world though. For the rules, we could go with some very open d100 rules, that would make it compatible with all the other d100 games - or just mark that the rules are not part of the license, that they're the copyright of Chaosium.

But I for one am more concerned with getting something off the ground that intellectual property rights for something that won't be generating a lot of money for any of us anyway.

We're not going to make money on this, that is right. But I think a ShareAlike licence will promote the "openess" part of it.

SGL.

[Rurik]

Would producing the setting as 'systemless' onder a license like the CC work, and then produce statistic packs for individual game systems? Kind of like what Green Ronon is doing for Freeport (though for different reasons)?

For example, produce a city detailing a town, all it's major personalities, etc, but with no rules, so no outside license is required. Then produce a stat-pack under the OGL for MRQ (easy) and BRP (which is where Chaosiums restrictive licensing comes into play ).

Such an approach could work, though I see 2 problems:

1) What to do with new rules as part of the setting, such as new spells or agic systems? I guess those could be treated like the stat packs though.

2) I would really like a tight integration of setting and rules in some areas, such as the CUlt writeups, where spells and game effects particular to cults would be included in the cult writeup.

[tzunder]

I'd say that a CC or OGL (but not both) core set of rules could be done.
I think the generic core under CC and then an OGL rule pack for RuneQuest or GORE and a "hey don't sue us" rule pack for BRP.
That ways the rules guys can play in their fave system, the setting people can just riff and have fun and anyone who wants to run it with Savage Worlds or Castle and Crusades can..

BTW this is exactly what we did with Gwenthia, how strange I never said it:

Setting and Rules are best Separate

[frogspawner]

I don't understand license stuff, but does it accommodate this concept...?

Authors control their own 'World', including anything contributed to that world, but other people are free to copy and extend/modify it (within the project) without the original Author's permission, so long as they mark it as "a version of XXX's World". (I think I've seen software licensed like that (GNU?))

[Trifletraxor]

Originally Posted by Rurik

1) What to do with new rules as part of the setting, such as new spells or agic systems? I guess those could be treated like the stat packs though.

New rules could be licensed the same way as the world. No problem there, new creation could be shared as we want.

2) I would really like a tight integration of setting and rules in some areas, such as the CUlt writeups, where spells and game effects particular to cults would be included in the cult writeup.

Cult writeups can easily form a part of the setting proper, if you don't use BRP's power chapter straight of the book.

Originally Posted by frogspawner

Authors control their own 'World', including anything contributed to that world, but other people are free to copy and extend/modify it (within the project) without the original Author's permission, so long as they mark it as "a version of XXX's World". (I think I've seen software licensed like that (GNU?))

Sounds like a good license for the shared Universe. Can you track it down?

SGL.