[freeroleplay] Re: [Fwd: Free-Content Licensing of FUDGE]
- From: Ricardo Gladwell <president@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: FRPGC <freeroleplay@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 12 Dec 2004 12:03:39 +0000
On Wed, 2004-12-08 at 18:53, Samuel Penn wrote:
> > "Opaque formats include... the machine-generated HTML, PostScript or PDF
> > produced by some word processors for output purposes only."
>
> The thing is, if it's not in the same format as that of the original
> author, then effort is needed to get it back into that format if the
> original author wants to merge the changes back into his version.
Not necessarily: there is nothing stopping you from distributing an MS
Word copy with your Transparent copy, if you so wish.
> And often, it's either easy to do or difficult to do, regardless of
> how transparent it is. MS Word or obfuscated HTML can both be converted
> to plain text relatively easily, at which point they become no harder
> to convert than plain text.
A simple solution is to export to RDF: I believe this can now be
considered a Transparent format.
> Admittedly I haven't used OO much (I'm not that much of a fan of it),
> so have never tried.=20
I used to find it quite annoying, but now I think its really come a long
way. The newer versions are particularly good and I'm quite happy using
to develop FRINGE.
> > You do not necessarily require a transparent editor to create a
> > transparent copy. The FDL does not restrict the editor, only the
> > Transparent format you publish in.
>
> But the format determines the editor. Try writing decent HTML if
> you're using Frontpage or MS Word. You can export as plain text,
> but then you loose tables and graphics. Most people aren't going
> to want to do this.
See my notes on RDF and publishing with multiple copies above. Just
because the FDL makes some requirements doesn't mean that that is the
minimum you can provide. The Transparent copy is a basic requirement to
ensure that everyone has access to the content.
> My point is, if you have to start arguing with someone over whether
> their HTML document is 'transparent' or not (and many people may
> have difficulty understanding the concept - not using MS Word format
> is easy to understand, but HTML is just HTML, isn't it?) then
> something somewhere has gone wrong. If someone has just spent time
> writing some good quality add ons for my free game system, I don't
> want to quibble over license issues, when the whole idea is to not
> have to do this.
I don't think its too much of an issue: simply requesting that users
provide a Transparent copy by exporting from their native file formats
is not particularly onerous. For example, when Marco published JAGS-2 in
the FDL I had to give him some pointers on how to properly use it. It
took a couple of emails and everything was fine.
--
Ricardo Gladwell
President, Free Roleplaying Community
http://www.freeroleplay.org/
president@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
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