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Archive 1Archive 2Archive 3

The OOGL

Ok, it appears that the primary content dispute is over the OOGL, but no one's really talking about it, and I can't quite tell what the conflict is. From what I can gather, the OOGL was a startup open license which ran into some difficulty with the great RMS? Now, since there only appear to be 2 products ever even nominally under the OOGL, is this one of those issues where the conflict received more publicity than the product? Am I going to find hundreds of pages of flamewar on usenet or something? If there was controversy, does it maybe need its own page or section? Also, the listing of the 2 products under the license and statment about it being non-revocable (I only really know the GPL, isn't non-revocability a requirement for an open license?) seem to come and go in the edits... the listing of the games seems dubious, since other, more robust licenses don't have their products listed, are these specific games important to list, and do we maybe need a list of products under OGLs? Fox1 19:19, 10 October 2005 (UTC)

Hi Fox1, I would agree with the assessment above: the OOGL published by BB himself and was used at least twice to publish two games (I can provide evidence of this). I'm not sure if it does require it's own page, and I'm sure BB would object to this, but I think a) it does deserve mention b) it was a copy of the GFDL with some minor changes and c) RMS did ask that the RPGLibrary cease pubication. Obviously, since it is based on the GFDL, once you license something under it's terms it is forever licensed under those terms and you cannot claw it back. I agree, there is probably no reason to list the exact games and I only did this because I wanted to clearly demonstrate the license actually had been used. As for the rest of this section, I think there is little or no evidence to support the rest of it. Axon (talk|contribs) 19:35, 10 October 2005 (UTC)
Responses to Fox1's questions:
  • "From what I can gather, the OOGL was a startup open license which ran into some difficulty with the great RMS?" A gentleman named Richard Stallman objected to it and threatened legal action. We called his bluff, and offered him the opportunity to clarify any possible confusion between the OOGL and the GNU FDL. We never heard from him again. (I have the two original emails which support these events, since I was and still am the point of contact for RPG Library, the owner of the license's copyright.) Is any of that relevant to the Open Gaming article? Someone seemed to think so. I do not know why.
  • "since there only appear to be 2 products ever even nominally under the OOGL..." One, actually ("Four Colors Al Fresco", by Woodelf). The other game which Axon claims was released under the OOGL, "Jazz", was never released (because it was never finished). The OOGL was one of several licenses under which I considered releasing Jazz. The last license I considered, and the one under which it would have been released had it actually been finished, was the the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license. At least, that was my intention during the period immediately preceding when I decided to stop working on it entirely. (I may return to Jazz some day, but I currently have no plans to do so.)
Edit: You know, I did have Jazz publicly online while I was working on it, in the hope that others would help with it. No one ever did, of course, but I did want them to, and I posted a couple of announcements to Usenet to that effect. I suppose you could call that "released". What the hell: call it "two games", then, if that will put this nonsense in the past where it belongs.
  • "...is this one of those issues where the conflict received more publicity than the product?" Possibly, but that isn't saying much. The OOGL was universally ignored.
  • "Am I going to find hundreds of pages of flamewar on usenet or something?" Not as far as I know (and I was a regular on rec.games.frp.* during the entire time that the OOGL was active). As far as I know, the OOGL was universally ignored. At one time, it had a one or two line mention on both the OGF and GNU web sites (in the same vein as "Earth: Mostly harmless"), and that was about it.
Edit: Actually, after thinking about it a while more, there was this one guy -- other than Stallman --- who made a real nuisance of himself. I don't recall his full name, but I do recall either his first or last name was "Ricardo", because it reminded me of I Love Lucy. This guy was way, way out there -- nothing on this article even comes close to how disruptive he was on the RPG Library mailing list. At the risk of being called "uncivil", this guy had serious "issues". After numerous complaints from other list members and several admin warnings from me, I finally had to remove him from the RPG Library list. I do not recall hearing from him after that. I do not know why he was so obsessed with the OOGL, or why he was so disruptive. But other than him (and the one letter from Stallman), I was never aware of any "controversy" about the OOGL at all (oh, and Axon: I guess that makes three people, although I never heard of Axon until a couple of years after the OOGL had been inactive).
  • "...the listing of the games seems dubious, since other, more robust licenses don't have their products listed..." Someone seemed to think that was important. I do not know why. I certainly don't see anyone clamoring to list Jazz or Four Colors Al Fresco under the Creative Commons license (which is the license under which "Four Colors" has been licensed for the past several years).
As for any open license being "non-revocable", I suppose theoretically someone who downloaded "Four Colors" back in 2002 and who wanted to use or modify it under the OOGL could do so, but as far as I know no one has, and I don't know why they would: the CC BB-SA license under which it has been released since then is far less restrictive.
Edit: Come to think of it, one could say the same thing of the Fudge Legal Notice, but I do not see anyone clamoring to do so.

-- BBlackmoor (talk) 20:10, 10 October 2005 (UTC)

It occurs to me that the last time I went to dinner with my wife's family, there was more controversy, more people involved, and more money at stake over the tip we left than there ever was over the OOGL. That's probably not relevant here, but it struck me funny, so I thought I'd share it. Should my family's argument be added to the Tipping article? :) -- BBlackmoor (talk) 21:42, 10 October 2005 (UTC)

I put out a note on the mailing list, as well as the article RfC, so hopefully that will pull more editors in. In the meantime, all I can suggest is to stick rigidly to Wikipedia:No original research, Wikipedia:Verifiability, and Wikipedia:Neutral point of view, as well as WP:NPA. Someone said there had been an RfC about one of the editors (Axon or Bblackmoor) but I can't find it. Does anyone have a link? SlimVirgin (talk) 21:44, 10 October 2005 (UTC)
There are probably links to the RfC and the other attempts at resolution in the archives 01 02. There's a lot of ugliness in them, too (on both sides). Try not to dredge that up, please. -- BBlackmoor (talk) 21:50, 10 October 2005 (UTC)
I havce to admit, I don't see much ugliness on my part: I remain civil and I only seem frustrated at personal attacks and that my attempts to comment on the talk page are obscured by top-posting and re-ordering of comments. Axon (talk|contribs) 13:06, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

By the way, I do know that more than a few people objected to the Fudge Legal Notice over the years (not all of those objections were legitimate or well-informed, but that is apparently not relevant here). Ann Dupuis made reference to that several times when she was considering releasing Fudge under the OGL or some other open license (she eventually chose the OGL). But I don't see anyone clamoring to add those objections to the Open gaming article. Should each person's objection be listed by their name and the date, along with the method by which their objection was refuted? I can try to get that information from Ann, if people think that this sort of thing really ought to be part of the Open gaming article. Personaly, I don't see the point of it, but I'll go along with what the community decides is appropriate for this article. -- BBlackmoor (talk) 22:47, 10 October 2005 (UTC)

Just a point about archiving, BB; there's no need to have such short pages, for future reference. Cheers, SlimVirgin (talk) 23:51, 10 October 2005 (UTC)
Okay. I got a warning when I saved the page, and did what it said to do. How big is too big? Or do you mean the size of the archive pages themselves? -- BBlackmoor (talk) 00:18, 11 October 2005 (UTC)
If you mean the thing that says this page is over 34 k or whatever it is now, you can ignore it, especially for archives. SlimVirgin (talk) 00:39, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

BTW, I did some sifting through my old email, and the name of that really disruptive fellow[1] that I received so many complaints about, and who I eventually had to remove from the RPG Library mailing list, was "Ricardo Gladwell" -- aka "Axon". So I guess there were just two people who objected, after all, not three. -- BBlackmoor (talk) 22:15, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

Evidence

I've started a seperate section here because the above one has become cluttered. I would note that it is trivial to demonstrate that Jazz was indeed publically published under the OOGL, finished or not[2]. Otherwise, it is clear that RMS did object to it as a copy of the GFDL. Otherwise, I can't think what other evidence there is. I would also note, we should probably take what the author of the license, Bblackmoor himself, says with a heavy pinch of salt. I think it is important a) to mention the intention of the license, b) mention that it was asked to be unpublished by RMS and c) that is was used and d) that it is a copy of the GFDL with a few terms changed[3][4]. I think mentioning anything else is pretty irrelevant unless someone can come up with some compelling evidence otherwise Axon (talk|contribs) 09:29, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

Okay, so applying Axon's opinion of the OOGL to the Open gaming article (which, Axon's monomania aside, is ostensibly what we are discussing):
  1. Every open content license applied toward (or intended for application toward) gaming, past or present, should be listed in the Open gaming article.
  2. The mention of each license should include a sentence or two summarizing what made it distinctive.
  3. Each objection to each of these licenses should be listed, along with the name of the person who raised the objection, and how the objection was addressed.
Points #1 and #2 I agree with, although I think the amount of space devoted to a license should be proportional to its actual use. A license that is no longer in use and/or was used only once or twice for a game that few people have ever heard of (e.g., the Fudge Legal Notice, the OOGL), hardly merits as much space as a license that has been used dozens or hundreds of times for games that every gamer knows by name (e.g., the Creative Commons licenses, the OGL).
Point #3 is, in my opinion, bad for this article and would set a bad precedent for Wikipedia, unless the objection itself is remarkable for being notorious in its own right, much like the well-known lawsuit of the woman who sued McDonald's for having coffee that was too hot (I'm not aware of any open gaming licenses which fit this description, but I want to cover all the possibilities). If a well-known game publisher sued or was sued by someone over their use of an open gaming license, for example, I think that might merit a paragraph or two, assuming the suit became well known. I do not think that each person who merely expresses disapproval of a given license should be documented in this article. If they are, this article is going to be very, very, very long. -- BBlackmoor (talk) 11:25, 11 October 2005 (UTC)
I would otherwise agree, but I think we have to judge this on a case-by-case method and that, in this case, the incident with RMS is notable and worth mentioning, I think the fact the license was an almost word-for-word copy of the GFDL is worth mentioning, and I think mentioning it was used at least twice is important to highlight the notability of the license and I would imagine others would agree with me. The length of the article is, of course, completely irrelevant: if there is more information, it should be included. If sections become too lengthy they should be split into seperate articles, if not they should have their own section in this article. If the list itself becomes to lengthy we can always create a seperate article for that.
Once again I find I must remind you to refrain from personal attacks and incivility in both your comments and talk page edit summaries: I am remaining civil with you. I am being monomaniac, but only for the purposes of resolving this dispute between us so that we can both get on with our lives. Seeing as this section has also been a focus for you over the last few months, one could accuse you of the same. I am providing evidence because articles are based on evidence (if you would prefer we can use the title 'Sources' for this section), as you have pointed out for yourself. Axon (talk|contribs) 11:40, 11 October 2005 (UTC)
Axon, I agree with a large number of your edits, and removing weasel words is a cause near and dear to my heart, but you're going to have to help me see your point of view on this particular issue. I've tried to read as much of both parties links as I've had time and I've done my own googling, so forgive me if I missed something obvious, but can you provide any sources to indicate the notability of the OOGL/the OOGLvsRMS incident? For my part, google gave me almost nothing useful except mirrors of WP, links to removed rpglibrary and 4 colors pages, a single thread in a mail archive and one page of BB's blog. The only mention I can find of the RMS incident is an apparently out-of-date note from freeroleplay.org advising people not to use it while its legal status is "shaky." It's sort of amusing, really, every time I thought I had found a new article on the OOGL, it just turned out to be an even more out-of-date WP mirror than I had already seen. I agree with everything you said, once the base of notability is provided... and I just can't find any substantive evidence of notability. Do you have any links I may have missed?
Fox1 12:27, 11 October 2005 (UTC)
I appreciate it is an obscure topic, and I encourage your efforts to find out as much as possible on the subject. It is true, there is little on Google on the subject but, as I say, the subject of Open gaming itself is obscure and much of the content on the OOGL has been since deleted, but that is no reason not to mention and include details on the topic simply because they are not available on the Internet. I think this dispute alone is evidence itself of some notability. I would also note that notability general applies to article titles and overall subjects, not the subject matter within the articles themselves which, especially in the case of already obscure subjects such as this, are likely to include obscure topics. Indeed, the OOGL was listed on the original Open Gaming Foundation web site[5]. Axon (talk|contribs) 12:50, 11 October 2005 (UTC)
Hi Axon, everything in the article must have been published elsewhere already, and that particularly goes for anything that's challenged. Any editor can ask for a credible published source for any edit, and if a source can't be produced, the edit should be deleted. See Wikipedia:No original research and Wikipedia:Verifiability. The sources don't have to be online, of course. SlimVirgin (talk) 21:44, 12 October 2005 (UTC)
So, pertaining to Axon's desires for this article, there seem to be two separate issues (and please correct me if I'm wrong, here):
  1. Is the "incident" to which Axon refers notable? My opinion on this has been stated, and there is a reasonable concern that I may be biased (I do not think I am, but the concern itself is reasonable), so I'll bow out of that discussion. However, for the purposes of the rest of the article, I would like to have some clear guidelines on what constitutes "notability", because it's completely possible that this concern might arise again (perhaps with myself in the position of defending an edit, next time), and I would like to know how to address it.
  2. Is the "incident" to which Axon refers verifiable? As I've stated, I have in my possession the one(1) email that Stallman sent RPG Library, and the one (1) email that I sent back on RPG Library's behalf, and I'm willing to share those if it's important to anyone. However, would that constitute "original research"? I mean, you have only my word for it that either email is un-edited, or for that matter that they are authentic at all. And if I am not permitted to supply what are (to the best of my knowledge, anyway) original documents to rebut a claim I know to be false, what documentation is required to make those claims to begin with? I'm not trying to be argumentative, here: I really want to know, because I can easily see this issue arising in articles having nothing at all to do with Axon's suggested edits, and I want to know how to address it.
Thank for any guidance you can provide. -- BBlackmoor (talk) 22:22, 12 October 2005 (UTC)
Notability is not an issue here, at least not directly. The only issue is verifiability. The criterion for entry into Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth. Something may be true, but if we can't find a credible published source to back it up, we don't publish it. Similarly, something may be false, but if it's in the New York Times, we do publish it. Private e-mails can't be used as sources because they weren't published. See WP:NOR and W:V: both are policy, not optional guidelines. The issue of notability comes into play only as a secondary consideration, in that most subjects that are entirely non-notable are unlikely to have been written about by credible published sources. Hope this helps. SlimVirgin (talk) 22:33, 12 October 2005 (UTC)
Fox1 seemed to think notability was relevant, but I'll let you guys work that out. As for a "verifiability, not truth", I did see that in the policy, and I can see how that would make sense from a certain point of view: Wikipedia isn't primary source material. It's not an intuitive way for me to approach writing, but I'll work on it.
So, if McDonald's claims that Bob's Burger Barn stole their recipe for french fries (and boy is the clown peeved), and they say so on their web site but they never take legal action, but meanwhile Bob's Burger Barn claims innocence (and Bob ain't too happy, either), and says so on their web site, but the rest of the world couldn't care less and doesn't do so much as mention it at the bottom of the Weddings section of the newspaper -- what would be the correct thing to add to the French fries article, as far as Wikipedia is concerned? Is McDonald's web site considered a reliable source, because it's a large corporation, but Bob's web site isn't, because they only have three restaurants in the greater Cincinatti area? Or should the French fries article mention both sides of the disagreement, to keep things neutral? Or should it mention neither, because no one other than Bob, the clown, and the Grimace has ever mentioned the disagreement? -- BBlackmoor (talk) 23:22, 12 October 2005 (UTC)
Nevermind, I found the answer. At least, I think I did: "Subjects which have never been written about in published sources, or which have only been written about in sources of doubtful credibility should not be included in Wikipedia." Wikipedia:Verifiability, "Obscure topics"| So if the disagreement between McDonald's and Bob's Burger Barn went no farther than single conflicting posts on their respective web sites, it should not be mentioned on Wikipedia. At least, that's how it looks to me... is that more or less the way it works? -- BBlackmoor (talk) 01:29, 13 October 2005 (UTC)
In the example you gave about McDonald's v. Bob, McD wouldn't just add it to their website, in part because it would be libelous. There would be lawyers' letters, press releases, and journalists would write about it. The dispute would therefore become "notable," but notability here would be entirely dependent on the fact that multiple sources would exist for the story. Notability is a concept that is parasitic on the existence of credible sources, which is why I called it a secondary issue. In that instance, we would give equal space to McD and to Bob, because it's one party v another, though if it was McD and a bunch of other companies v Bob, we'd probably have to give less space to Bob's view.
But to take another example: if it was Bob v Bill, and no one had ever heard of them, no newspaper had written about the disagreement, and the dispute was entirely confined to their personal websites, then we wouldn't write about it, because it would fail the credible-third-party-sources test (and therefore would fail the notability test, because of the lack of sources). SlimVirgin (talk) 08:30, 13 October 2005 (UTC)
Okay, I think I have a handle on this. Please don't think I'm being deliberately dense: I want to make sure I understand how things are supposed to work. So, for example, the edit I made this morning to the Derek Smart article[6] (and Talk:Derek Smart page[7]): would you say that is a good edit, a bad edit, or something in between? -- BBlackmoor (talk) 13:48, 13 October 2005 (UTC)
Very good edit. The contents of the e-mail would have to have been published, and somewhere credible, not just Usenet or someone's personal website, unless it was the personal website of the subject of the article, in which case we could use it, but even then with caution. For more information about using websites as sources, see Wikipedia:Reliable_sources#Using_online_sources. SlimVirgin (talk) 14:06, 13 October 2005 (UTC)
Slim's right (of course :) ), notability is a secondary consideration to verifiability, so I was putting the cart before the horse, to a degree. In my defense, I was still fumbling around trying to find the shape of the issue at that point.
So, can we move towards a compromise on the article now, and get it unlocked?
In light of what we've discussed, what would be objectionable about, for example:
"One of the many licenses written in response to the OGL was the October Open Game License, a copyleft license published by Brandon Blackmoor of the RPG Library designed to present an alternative to perceived problems with the OGL. The OOGL was used by at least two games before the authors of the OOGL ceased using it for their own work in late 2002, in favor of the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License. RPG Library support for The October Open Game License ceased on 13 June 2003, also in favor of the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.
Fox1 14:19, 13 October 2005 (UTC)
I would make only a few changes to that.
  1. Although RPG Library is my web site, lots of people contributed to the OOGL so that RPG Library could publish it (Woodelf, among others). I don't think it's right to give me sole credit: I would just say "published by RPG Library", and leave it at that.
  2. I would take "many" out of the first line. I honestly don't know how many there were. I'm sure that the OOGL was not the only one, but "many" may be an exaggeration. In any event, I don't have a reference for it.
  3. I don't want to get hung up on the one game vs. two games thing -- I just don't think that's worth arguing about anymore -- but "at least two games" implies that there were more than two, and to the absolute best of my knowledge that isn't so. If it is so, I have never seen any evidence of it. So I would either say "two games", and leave it at that, or not mention the number at all -- I wasn't actually planning to list the number of games released under each license, although I don't guess that's such a bad idea, if we can keep the tally up-to-date.
  4. Mentioning the Creative Commons license twice just seems clunky to me.
  5. I'd add a hyperlink to the current status of the OOGL, simply because I intend to do that for all of the licenses listed in thos article. Alternately, all such hyperlinks could be moved to the "References" section, if folks think that would be more readable. Either way is fine with me, as long as we have external references for all of the licenses we mention.
So here is how I would modify your suggestion (minus the external link, which might just as well go at the end of the article):
"One of the licenses written in response to the OGL was the October Open Game License, a copyleft license published on 2000-12-27 by RPG Library. The OOGL was designed to present an alternative to perceived problems with the WotC Open Game License. The OOGL was used by two games before the authors of the OOGL ceased using it for their own work in late 2002 (and suggested that others do the same), in favor of the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License. RPG Library support for the October Open Game License ceased entirely on 2003-06-15.
-- BBlackmoor (talk) 15:42, 13 October 2005 (UTC)
That seems fine to me... but then, that's not really a factor, I suppose. Hopefully we can get some input from Axon soon.
Fox1 15:59, 13 October 2005 (UTC)
The page is unprotected (yay!), but I'll hold off making any changes to this particular section for a week or so to give Axon a chance to weigh in. -- BBlackmoor (talk) 20:16, 15 October 2005 (UTC)
Okay, it's been a few more days, and no one has made any further suggestions or revisions, so I'm going ahead and copying this version of the OOGL to the article. I hope that's okay with everyone. If not, we can certainly discuss it further. -- BBlackmoor (talk) 19:10, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

Outside Sources

Here we see Bblackmoor calling Axon a net Loon.

Net Loon

Bblackmoor is obviously sensitive about this issue, and I personally think that his comments should have a bit less weight.


Further you can find documentation on the OOGL dispute at Non Open Licenses

Thanks,

Joshua 16:35, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

Joshua has obviously been following this discussion closely, to contribute such a keen and insightful analysis. And good job on digging up that blog entry from February: I'll never be able to deny being "uncivil" to Axon now, will I? Unfortunately, Joshua, I don't think it is physically possible for my comments to carry any less weight than they currently do, but I appreciate your sentiment. :) -- BBlackmoor (talk) 21:44, 11 October 2005 (UTC)
Oh, and thanks for the link to Axon's web site, but he's made his opinion pretty clear, I think. -- BBlackmoor (talk) 22:15, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

Unprotected

I've unprotected this. I think everybody's had a chance to think some more, and hopefully there will be some more conciliatory edits than before. Remember this is encyclopedia, not a place to air personality differences. --Tony SidawayTalk 02:10, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

Anyone who adds anything should please cite a credible source, which should not consist of a blog, a post to a discussion forum or Usenet, and if it's a personal website, it should only be used as a source if the edit is about the website's owner. See Wikipedia:Reliable sources. Anything that is deleted should be brought to talk for discussion. If everyone sticks to the policies, there should be no need to re-protect it, but I will if the reverting starts again. Cheers, SlimVirgin (talk) 02:15, 15 October 2005 (UTC)
Would a week from now be a good time to refactor this discussion page? Much of it is, I hope, no longer relevant to the article, and the content of the article is what I would like to focus on from here on out. -- BBlackmoor (talk) 20:16, 15 October 2005 (UTC)
I don't see why not, BB, so long as Axon doesn't mind. I'm glad to see there's been no reverting since it was unprotected. Are you fairly happy with the version on the page now? SlimVirgin (talk) 13:36, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
No, but I think the suggested revisions here on the Talk page (both for the Overview and for the OOGL section) are good edits. I want to give Axon (and anyone else who may have an interest) another few days to suggest additional modifications to those sections, though. -- BBlackmoor (talk) 16:13, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
It's been several days and no one has made any further suggestions or revisions to the proposed Overview and OOGL sections, so I am going to go ahead and copy the sections that have been disucussed here to the article. Then I'll archive the old discussion from this Talk page to archive02, and start a new section here for discussion of the next section of the article. I hope everyone is okay with that. If not, please say so and we can discuss it. As a postscript to this whole thing, many thanks to both Fox1 and SlimVirgin for helping me understand Wikipedia policy and the reasons for it. I am sorry that I was such a pest, and I'm grateful that you were patient with me. -- BBlackmoor (talk) 19:10, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
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