[freeroleplay] Re: [Fwd: Free-Content Licensing of FUDGE]
- From: Samuel Penn <sam@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: freeroleplay@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 8 Dec 2004 17:25:00 +0000
On Wednesday 08 December 2004 16:07, Ricardo Gladwell wrote:
> I don't actually think difficult to read HTML is considered Transparent
> by the FDL: I believe the FDL does not allow you to distribute, for
> example, the obfuscated HTML exported from MS word. I think clarity is a
> requirement for a Transparent copy.
I'm not talking about obfuscated HTML. 90%+ of the HTML out there
hasn't been obfuscated, but is difficult to parse automatically.
Even 'clean' HTML can be difficult to parse if you want to go from
presentation markup to content markup. Plain text can have similar
problems.
It's only when you start looking at XHTML that things start becoming
sensible, and there's very little out there that will produce proper
XHTML.
So, from the point of view of whether something is easy to parse and
change into another format (such as XML), the transparency clause
doesn't help a lot.
> > Do I gain anything with a transparency clause which I wouldn't
> > with a no-DRM clause? Do I really want to have to tell someone to
> > stop using Yags just because their favourite editor is MS Word?
>
> Well, I don't think its about you gaining anything but about benefiting
> your downstream users. By publishing a transparent format they don't
> have to worry about, for example, purchasing expensive software to open
> and edit your content.
Another way to look at it however, is that the 'expensive software'
is for most people the default way of doing things. Now, it's not a
state of affairs that I'm particularly fond of, but for most people
a document in OpenOffice format is actually harder to read than a
document in MS Word format. And yet OO is considered more transparent.
Except for the very worst HTML, most browsers can render pages just
fine, so even obfuscated HTML is readable in something everyone can
get (and probably already has) for free. XML which is transparent as
far as programs are concerned, is a lot less readable to the average
gamer who wants to tinker with the rules. They'll probably just load
the HTML version into MS Word, and make the changes there. By saying
that they cannot publish in MS Word (I'm simplifying here...) it's
actually making it harder for them to edit the work.
Now, it doesn't matter what license I choose as far as how I publish -
I will continue to publish XML, HTML and PDF versions of everything
regardless of whether I'm using a transparency clause.
But restricting what editors someone can use is actually making
it harder for people to change the content. Now, people downstream
from them may then find that the edited version is only available in
MS Word format, but for the most part OO, antiword or even Google can
deal with that, with arguably less hassle than the editor would have
had if he'd needed to download OO or learn how to hack HTML in notepad.
I reckon that the majority of people would rather either ignore the
license or not bother, than go to the effort of finding a transparent
editor.
I'm sort of playing devil's advocate here, so I haven't totally
fallen from the path of light, but I do wonder whether transparency
is as useful in practise as it is in theory.
--
Be seeing you, http://www.glendale.org.uk/
Sam. jabber: samuel.penn@xxxxxxxxxx
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