A discussion of hybrid open source and proprietary licensing models.

["Ryan S. Dancey" <ryand AT organizedplay.com>]

On Tue, 2004-09-21 at 22:45 +0100, Rob Myers wrote:

> Incidentally, are you familiar with the Creative Commons licenses? What 
> do you think of them? Would you have considered using any of them 
> rather than drafting your own license had they existed at the time? If 
> not, what do you think would make them more useful for (gaming) 
> business?

Yes, I reviewed them in some detail.

My primary concerns were twofold at the time:

1)  They are very complex.  We were already struggling with the fact
that a lot of the people we expected to use the OGL would not take the
time to read or understand a complex license (which is one of the big
reasons we split the copyright license and the trademark license into
two documents - although afterwords it was clearly the best solution to
a host of other problems.)

2)  I did not see a way to provide for the concept of "product
identity", that is, non-open material mixed liberally with open content.
For example:

"Darth Vader" is Product Identity

Everything in the following sentence is Open Game Content, except the
Product Identity:

"Darth Vader:  10th level Fighter/10th level Sorcerer; 82 hp; AC 24; STR
20, DEX 10, INT 14, WIS 18, CON 10, CHA 18; (...)

Darth Vader is a loyal servant of the Emperor, who is dispatched
throughout the galaxy to do his bidding and enforce the dictates of the
Empire.  Armored from head to foot in a black metallic outfit fitted
with life support equipment to keep his ravaged body alive, his raspy,
mechanical breathing is often the first indication that he has arrived.
Vader is feared by both Rebels and Imperial loyalists alike, and his
methods often include summary execution for those who fail him or his
Master."

Most of the open content licenses I reviewed treated material as if it
would be assembled into separate units:  modules in the form of source
code, or chapters/appendices in the form of written material.  Nothing I
found took a technology and presentation neutral stance to how open and
non-open content could be combined and protected under different
licensing terms.

Ryan