[freeroleplay] Re: Descriptive vs. Proscriptive, frpgc.org vs. freeroleplay.org

  • From: "Mark Havenner" <laveaux@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: <freeroleplay@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Tue, 26 Jul 2005 08:06:59 -0600

I have a somewhat related question - my rpg system uses the Creative Commons
licensing, is that supported by FRPG?

-----Original Message-----
From: freeroleplay-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:freeroleplay-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Ricardo Gladwell
Sent: Tuesday, July 26, 2005 05:57 AM
To: Free Roleplaying Community
Subject: [freeroleplay] Descriptive vs. Proscriptive, frpgc.org vs.
freeroleplay.org


Dear All,

As part of the revamp of the FRPGC site, I'm also looking to revise and 
clarify our position on certain topics, such as licensing and our 
philosophy on freedom. I'd like to poll opinions.

In a recent email conversation with the FSF I learned of an interesting 
idea: that free content is meaningless in space. No, I wasn't exactly 
sure what he meant either, but the gist of it was that a document or 
book is free content only if it supports the four free software 
freedoms, irrelevant of it's license. That is, just because a license 
does not support free content (i.e. no modifiable source clause, etc) 
does not mean the content itself is not free content (i.e. if it freely 
supplies a copy of the source regardless).

This puts me in mind of a descriptive and proscriptive division in the 
definition of freedom. For example, the FSF is descriptive in that it 
only describes what should be free software. The Open Source Initiative 
(OSI) is proscriptive because it clearly defines what is and isn't a 
open source license.

The question is: how should we approach this issue? Should we be 
descriptive only, endorsing everything that meets our criteria of free 
content (which could include OGL content in some cases, but also things 
like the CC'd "The Shadow of Yesterday"). Or should we be more 
proscriptive like the OSI and clearly define what we consider should 
(and shouldn't) be part of a free content license?

Another division I'd like to poll is the use of either of our domain 
names. I've been examining our Google PageRank (which is currently at 4 
compared to 7 for rpg.net and 6 for rpglibrary.org). I think we should 
focus on promoting one over the other so which do you guys prefer? 
frpgc.org is simpler and more memorable, but freeroleplay.org is clearer 
and already established.

Ideas?

Kind regards...

-- 
Ricardo Gladwell
President, Free Roleplaying Community http://www.freeroleplay.org/
president@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

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