Development of Creative Commons licenses

[Rob Myers <robmyers AT mac.com>]

On Friday, April 16, 2004, at 09:54AM, Peter Brink <peter.brink AT brinkdata.se> 
wrote:

>> Surely this is just like the FDL's invariant sections or CC's no-derivs.
>
>No not really. This license allows you to close stuff like poses, concepts, 
>thematic elements, plots, story lines etc. 

If they are an enhancement over prior art and couldn't be sourced from the 
public domain. Which means you have something copyrightable or trademarkable 
anyway. There's a good discussion of this in the OGL list archive.

The OGL is a "value exchange" license rather than a "gift economy" license. 
Ryan Dancey was very open about his motivations in writing it.

>Rob, I do know where the OGL comes from and of its intended market. I've 
>been 
>playing RPG's for more than 20 years...

I'm sorry, that was (intended as) a generally addressed comment and in no way 
intended as a slight.

>I would recommend someone wanting to use a Open Content license for a 
>roleplaying game to use either GPL, OSL or CC Att-SA.

I don't think those are the best for games specifically but it's certainly 
workable if one doesn't mind being marginalised. 

There's a mailing list at www.opengamingfoundation.org for anyone who is 
interested in the OGL. The licenses' author is there, and various parties 
with strong views on the matter. :-)

- Rob.