E-Tools Character XML converter

[richvalle]

If anyone is interested in the "real" reason everything happened back then, buy me a beer at Gen Con.

Man, I want to make it to Gencon just for that.

rv

[DarkStar]

There was a lot of legal talk in this thread. I understand eTools is Monkey's property, whilst the generated information is Wizards' IP. What about a program like PCGen? It's Open Source, based on GPL, so you can do anything you like with it. It uses (at least the version which is available for download, w/o CMP's datasets) only the SRD material, which is also free. I began to create an exporter for Fantasy Grounds XML scheme. What I'm doing is writing an outputsheet as they're called in PCGen, that follows FG's XML structure and feeds the document with PCGen data. Is this a legal infringement as well? I must admit, I can't see I'm doing anything illegal - the program is GPLed, data is OGLed and you can already export data into several formats (various HTML documents, nifty PDF character sheets, etc.), then why couldn't I go and make a FG outputsheet?

Comments, please.

[Thore_Ironrock]

There was a lot of legal talk in this thread. I understand eTools is Monkey's property, whilst the generated information is Wizards' IP. What about a program like PCGen? It's Open Source, based on GPL, so you can do anything you like with it. It uses (at least the version which is available for download, w/o CMP's datasets) only the SRD material, which is also free. I began to create an exporter for Fantasy Grounds XML scheme. What I'm doing is writing an outputsheet as they're called in PCGen, that follows FG's XML structure and feeds the document with PCGen data. Is this a legal infringement as well? I must admit, I can't see I'm doing anything illegal - the program is GPLed, data is OGLed and you can already export data into several formats (various HTML documents, nifty PDF character sheets, etc.), then why couldn't I go and make a FG outputsheet?

Comments, please.

This is probably a question best asked directly to CMP, perhaps in their forums as I know Rob visits here only occasionally.

I know their licensing and copyrights are different from eTools to PCGen, so the question is best asked directly to them. I know that eTools is off limits because of their license with WOTC, but like I said I'm not sure about PCGen. I know Rob talked about some sort of FG converter for PCGen once, but I'm not sure whatever happened to it. Like I said I don't think there are are any plans to use use it with eTools, but I know that their upcoming RPGToolkit will definately have one in it.

Again, it is a question best posed directly to CMP. I can say that Rob is always respectful of people who "ask first politely", so that is the path I would suggest.

[ShaneB]

Hmmm. Its just XSLT from one XML document to another, AND with the PCGen format being open source I dont see any legal issue, as long as FG doesn't mind people creating XML documents in their format (which we can do anyways with building new rulesets, etc)

- Shane

[DarkStar]

as long as FG doesn't mind people creating XML documents in their format

FG's XML format is part of OGL. I also can't see how possibly using XSLT to transform PCGen generated output to FG would pose a violation of... anything.

[Mynex]

FG's XML format is part of OGL. I also can't see how possibly using XSLT to transform PCGen generated output to FG would pose a violation of... anything.

Sorry I've been quiet/absent on the topic, it does take a while to go through all the legalese and find out what is/isn't acceptable and pitch ideas to various pubs...

There is no issue at all... As long as you stick with the data released with the Open Source Project's PCGen distribution (and there's a lot of it there)...

The problem comes into this, if you make this conversion sheet, and you make it available, and some uses it with the CMP created data sets for PCGen and then distributes such conversions... that's a no-no and that's what most of this thread was discussing... It is a little blurrier with the PCGen side, but again, it's not about a convertor, it's not about the legal right (or no right) to make one, it's about appearance of impropriety to publishers. Just keep that in mind, be willing to be patient, and you get a solution... as follows.

I've been going back and forth a little with JSandeman... And here's a solution that will work, is acceptable and doesn't violate our agreements with any publisher, and doesn't make any publisher twitch in a bad way...

If someone (or several someones) wishes to create an outputsheet for either/or both e-Tools and PCGen that exports to the FG format... We'll be more than happy to host such an output sheet on our site... and possibly include it in our release cycle.

If someone wishes to create such a sheet (or several even) it is possible that you'd get paid for this as well.. of course for payment there'd be terms and conditions applied (updates every so often, handling bug/feature requests of said sheet, things like that).

So, now that there's a solution, ball's in ya'lls court!

[ShaneB]

Got a schema def for FG Mynex?? I could probably reverse eng the XML docs from the FG install, but it would be more appropriate if we had a schema available.. piece of cake after that

[kalmarjan]

Schema should be coming with 1.06.

For right now, I am working on this problem. I have an xsl stylesheet set up, now I just need to "fill" the variables with the information from the ETOOLS DB. That way, we can have a "clean" output as opposed to applying an xsl to the XML that is spit out of ETOOLS.

Anyone wishes to give a hand, PM me, and I will show you where I am at. When it comes to XML and XSLT I am pretty proficient, but when it comes to databases, I am not so proficient pulling the information. LOL

Slowly but surely it is coming along.

Sandeman

[DarkStar]

What kind of database is this?