[freeroleplay] Re: Generics
- From: Per Inge Mathisen <pim@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: freeroleplay@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 11 May 2004 12:15:58 +0000 (GMT)
On Tue, 11 May 2004, Ricardo Gladwell wrote:
> I see your problem. If you want to write a software library based on your
> written content and license it so it can be used in commercial products,
> such as under the LGPL, what do you do?
>
> One approach would be to ask yourself what has a written spell have to do
> with its code-based implementation? Can you seperate a spell's content from
> its code implementation?
>
> Many of us on this list have hypothised about writing RPG software that
> access the actually rules/content in a dynamic fashion... i.e. reading XML
> configuration files at initialisation.
This is possible, of course. However, it is by no means simple, and
presents a very big hurdle for the software developer. A computer game
doing this needs to do it _fast_, a consideration PCGen does not need.
It is also quite problematic when you consider things like spells. How do
you represent a 'Mass Charm Person' or a 'Seduction' spell in XML without
any knowledge of the internals of the computer game's AI? It is possible,
certainly, but quickly gets complicated. You also need to make some
assumptions about what kind of variables the game would keep track of.
Creating a software library that could implement something like this in a
general fashion for a variety of rulesets and which is also reasonably
fast would be quite difficult, although the benefits would be great.
So is it really desireable to make such demands of the software coder?
> > Perhaps additional licenses like "You may implement any part of this
> > content as software code under the GNU Lesser General Public License
> > (LGPL)" for content and "You may convert any part of this code to open
> > content under the GNU Free Documentation License (FDL)" for software would
> > do the trick.
>
> Wouldn't this be equivalent to dual licensing?
Yes, except you can't attempt obnoxious things like using only the LGPL
for the content, to try to avoid the obligations of the FDL for the whole
work. At least not without significant legal risk.
- Per
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