Clarifying the Read Me First document.
The Read Me First document at least seems very contradictory. Can I get some clarification on the following points please?
Option 1 said:
I want to produce material based on older and out of print versions of Traveller, and publish them on a non-commercial basis.
Consult the Fair Use Policy document.
Option 1 is pretty clear - if we want to non-commercially publish material for an older version of Traveller, then it's releasable under the FUP. Though interestingly enough, the FUP doesn't specifically mention the OTU at all - so does the FUP cover OTU material? If so, this should probably be explicitly mentioned here.
Option 2 said:
I want to produce and publish my own original material using the current Traveller rules – both commercially and non-commercially.
Consult the Traveller Logo Licence.
So if we want to publish original material for the current Traveller rules, then the TLL is required. However, OTU material is specifically excluded from this in the TLL itself - given that the readme is supposed to direct people to whatever is the appropriate option for them, this exemption should probably be mentioned explicitly here.
Also, when you say "current Traveller Rules" it's clear from the TLL that you specifically mean Mongoose Traveller. From the readme though, it could equally mean GURPS Traveller, or any other version of the game still actively being published at the time the license is read. So perhaps MGT should be specified here in the readme too.
Option 3 said:
I want to produce and publish material based on the Original Traveller Universe, including the Imperial Scout Service, Zhodani, the Third Imperium, and everything else! I haven’t decided whether to use an older version of Traveller, or the current one.
Consult the Foreven Free Sector Logo Licence.
This option seems unclear in the readme. It seems that this should only apply to OTU material being produced specifically for Mongoose Traveller, shouldn't it? After all, if one is producing and publishing material based in the OTU for an older version of Traveller then it should be already covered under the FUP and not the Foreven FSL, right?
Further confusion arises given that you later specify this in the readme:
Note that ‘to publish’ covers not only printed books, but also documents such as those in Word or PDF formats, and web sites. Whether you are charging money for these items or giving them away for free makes no difference – if it is intended for the general public, it is still publishing!
This specifies that if material is released in any form to the public (whether free or not), then it still counts as "published". So option 1 says that we can publish OTU material non-commercially under the FUP for older versions of Traveller, but option 3 says that we can't because if we publish material for the OTU then it doesn't matter whether it's free or not - it has to be under the Foreven FSL. This is contradictory.
To muddy the waters even more, I notice this at the end of the readme:
The Foreven Free Sector Logo Licence
This separate licence allows you to publish, commercially or otherwise, material for the Original Traveller Universe. However, all such material must be confined to the Foreven Sector – the golden rules here are (repeated from the licence itself);
You are free to reference any Original Traveller Universe material you wish, and you may create new material based on this so long as he new material is set in the Foreven Sector.
You cannot produce anything that changes or creates Original Traveller Universe material outside of the Foreven Sector.
Note that you cannot produce commercial material using this licence and the Fair Use Policy. If you wish to produce commercial Original Traveller Universe material, it must be either completely system free, or in conjunction with the Traveller Logo Licence.
The two statements I highlighted in bold here are contradictory. Can we or can we not publish material commercially using the Foreven FSL?
The last sentence (in italics) is very strange though - are you really saying that we can commercially publish OTU material (apparently without any license at all) so long as it is completely system-free? And are you suggesting that systemless OTU material can be commercially published using the TLL (remember, in the TLL you explicitly say that OTU material can't be mentioned if the TLL is used).
I
think that what you're actually saying here is:
1) We can continue to publish material (including OTU-based material set anywhere outside Foreven sector) for older versions of Traveller under the FUP so long as it is released for free/non-commercially.
2) We can (commercially or non-commercially) publish original
non-OTU material for Mongoose Traveller under the TLL only.
3) The only way that OTU-based material (commercially or non-commercially) can be published specifically for Mongoose Traveller is under the Foreven FSL, which states that it must be set in Foreven sector.
Would this be correct?