2025-09-21 –, Tesla
Most of us are probably aware about the importance of licenses in the context of software. But there are other areas where they are relevant as well. One scene that most of us usually don't consider in the context of licenses is pen and paper roll playing games like Dungeons and Dragons (D&D). However there is a story to be told about open licenses, that is actually about as old, as the ones that are much more relevant for us.
Licenses are important beyond software (and hardware). Actually they are relevant in any field that is focused around creativity. One of the scenes that is busting with creativity and always yearns for new content and also lives on new additions to existing content is the pen and paper community. Starting with Dungeons and Dragons (D&D).
Here, we can find a fascinating story how licenses and how the community formed itself interacted with each other.
We start at a time long before greatly structured licenses. But the real story begins when there was a ideal world created based on an open licenses, so that this world could be populated freely by whoever wanted to enter it.
Shortly afterwards we can bring in the cliché of a big bad boss enemy, who wants to use their might to bind these licenses to bend the "world" to their wishes and to regain former exclusive powers.
But as in every good adventure story there then is a community that stands up to fight for their freedom to bring in their own ideas as they want.
After some plot twists the ORC is created. A new shiny open license alternative.
Then the final battle will open up with hundreds of people joining in. It will be a fast and hard fight.
This is a story that is worth to look at, if one is interested in open (and free) licenses. Especially as this story is centered around not only about single individuals who sacrifice themselves, but on all sides around companies that have created successful products and who actually base their living on these products.
It is also a story that is worth to look at, if one is interested in what powers a community actually can have even when faced with really big players, if they stand together.
I'm a German IT-consultant who also had studied a little bit of law.
More importantly I've a lot of different hobbies. Role playing, biking and dancing among them.
But I'm also interested in privacy, security, identity as wall as open source. While I've had some hands on and have been active in different projects around these topics, my current perspective to these topics is more on a "higher" meta level, where I'm interested in the interaction between society / politics / economics and these topics.