Evil Head ([info]drivingblind) wrote in [info]fatetherpg,
@ 2004-03-18 14:31:00
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Gigantic News about Fudge
Fudge is liable to go OGL, or some other open license (I'm encouraging Ann to take a look at Creative Commons). The details are over on my personal journal.

Rob and I are still trying to sort out what this means for Fate, exactly -- especially given that our problems with the current Fudge license were our main spur for taking Fate in a non-Fudge direction.

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Free as in Speech.
[info]gargargar
2004-08-28 06:01 pm UTC (link)
I realize that this is an old entry, and that this is a tired and exhausted discussion, but...

First of all, I'm amazed that the amount of FUDGE retelling you did in FATE was even enough to make FATE a derivative work, copyright-wise. I didn't see any of SoS's actual text in there, and your system diverged so much that even the "FUDGE In One Page" section was more of a historical curiosity than a part of the rules.

Second, have you considered just releasing a plain-text version of the rules under a CC license? I couldn't find any actual copyright info on the masthead page of the FATE2fe.pdf file, so I'm not entirely clear on the license of FATE. I have a friend who may want to do a portuguese translation of the core rules, but is a Debian developer and thus picky about licenses.

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Re: Free as in Speech.
[info]drivingblind
2004-08-28 11:39 pm UTC (link)
We're of a mind to take advantage of Fudge as an entry-point to our game, and with the eventual OGLing of Fudge (we hope), there's no real reason for us to break ties with that. We're going to release the bulk of Fate as an OGL property once Fudge does officially go there.

Current Fate is under the Fudge free license.

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Re: Free as in Speech.
[info]drivingblind
2004-08-28 11:47 pm UTC (link)
(And technically copyright Fred Hicks and Rob Donoghue beyond that, at least for now. But we're willing to extend the Fudge license to cover the necessaries -- contact us at fate AT faterpg.com)

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Re: Free as in Speech.
[info]gargargar
2004-08-29 03:59 am UTC (link)
Well, my main concern is that I'm not sure what pieces of SoS's copyrighted materials are actually in FATE2fe.pdf as it stands now. Near as I can tell, you folks wrote all the FUDGE-related sections from scratch based on an understanding of how FUDGE works. If you didn't cut-and-paste SoS's writing, how does the FUDGE license have any bearing at all on FATE?

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Re: Free as in Speech.
[info]drivingblind
2004-08-29 03:16 pm UTC (link)
Rogue Publishing's The Collectors does not repeat much of the Fudge main text, and yet, is undeniably a derivative work of Fudge. While I feel the relationship is more tenuous between Fudge and Fate, I still ffeel that the derivation is self-evident -- honestly, I don't know how to quantify this one to your satisfaction. Like art, I know it when I see it.

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Re: Free as in Speech.
[info]gargargar
2004-08-29 07:25 pm UTC (link)
I see the normal everyday human notion of derivative work, certainly. What I fail to see is the definition under United States copyright law. You have taken concepts, ideas, and mechanisms: these fall under patent law, not copyright (and SoS doesn't seem to have any patents on the FUDGE rules, contrast with the folks at Looney Labs who hold patents on Icehouse). You may have used the FUDGE logo in the book (I didn't see it, and it's quite simple to remove), which most likely falls under trademark law. You simply have not included any of SoS's copyrighted text in your work, and as such I'm at a loss as to why his copyright license applies to your book.

Now, I fully understand if you follow the license simply to maintain favorable relations with Grey Ghost or others in the FUDGE community. That's a perfectly valid extralegal reason. Likewise if you felt some other moral or ethical drive to abide by the FUDGE license, that would also be perfectly understandable. But from my detailed study of US copyright law (mostly with respect to community-developed software), you have no legal obligation to keep FATE licensed under terms that are compatible with the FUDGE license.

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Re: Free as in Speech.
[info]drivingblind
2004-08-30 02:52 am UTC (link)
Well, sure. Mainly my understanding is that we can't call Fate a Fudge game under its current license. It's not a case of text duplication -- I could make a d20 game that duplicated none of the core SRD text, and I might still have Wizard breathing down my neck if I didn't slap the right licenses on things. But maybe no -- maybe we could just duplicate everything we wanted to about Fudge without calling it a Fudge derivative work. But, yeah, as you say, plenty of extralegal reasons for us to continue living in that space.

I'm not a lawyer; everything I'm saying here may well be bunk. And honestly, whether or not it is, I don't care. We've gotten a well-established relationship with SoS and Grey Ghost, and we've got an interest in keeping it positive. So why rock the boat. :)

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Re: Free as in Speech.
[info]rob_donoghue
2004-08-30 03:06 am UTC (link)
That actually nailed it on the head (The extralegal reasons). Fudge, and the fudge community has been very good to us, and our primary motivation (in my mind) is respect for SOS, Anne and the Fudge community. A lot of our early support came from the fudge community, so making it a "fudge product" was important conceptually, important enough that when we were going to OGL/CC, we were going to actively take a step away from the Fudge elements so we were not stepping on any toes. We didn't _have_ to - as you say, as derivative products go it's pretty far afield - but it let us give props where we felt they were due.

Now, that said, the ultimate priority is that everything eventually go Open Content, one way or another, but being able to do so in conjunction with Fudge is a really great thing.

Ultimately, we're not feeling shackled by copyright. On the list of things that are getting in the way of going Open, it's way, way, way below finding the time to write. :)

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