The Fantasygrounds Content License change and how it affects contributors

[Ken L]

So for those not aware, Fantasy Grounds updated their content license for the use of the front end ruleset logic from what used to be "Copyright Smiteworks" and a basic non-commercial use to the following, August of this year which I didn't notice until recently.



Limited permission is given to use the files in the following list to build additional Fantasy Grounds customizations that are made freely available to the community, or sold through the Fantasy Grounds store. If permission has not been provided through this list or explicitly from SmiteWorks USA LLC, no permission is given. This permission can be revoked at any time. Permission is automatically revoked for freely available content, if an official release of that content is made available on the Fantasy Grounds store.

<various rulesets listed>


The last line in particular is directly saying "If we release the same ruleset on the marketplace, your contribution based on our code must come down." This single handed-ly was perhaps the most blatant attack on users whom make rulesets for free. You're basically thanking them for creating the "market" for the game on FG, then kicking them out to cash-in with the official ruleset should they not wish to become the maintainer. Has this happened yet? No, but the fact that the original text explicitly targets free community contributions for automatic removal when a paid for official version is available makes Smiteworks intentions very clear. Either become a "community developer" and maintain the ruleset for a marginal small cut with obligations for updating; or get the floor yanked out from under you. It's effectively a gun to their head in terms of the ability to share their code to discourage not signing it over. Now Smite can sing the song of "we were trying to clarify since a user asked", but automatic revocation seems pretty premeditated in intention. Co-existence wasn't even considered by Doug.

I said my piece about this here (https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?44941-Diffs-for-New-versions-of-CoreRPG-5E/page2) and here (https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?44941-Diffs-for-New-versions-of-CoreRPG-5E/page3) and they removed the last line; but left alone the "revoke at anytime" clause which still reserves them that right. It's a super set of "automatically" so it's no question they want the words to sound more friendly, yet retain the same bite for those who don't realize the legalease in the text. If I never said a thing, FG would be content with automatic removal as their version of fine text. After I got the DDave response which sounded right out of the Microsoft legal department, I pretty much realized he cares more about profitability of contributions as opposed to them increasing access. At this point I just deleted all my stuff (which I found re-posted by a moderator, claiming GPL to repost it, but forget about the part where if FG yanks a user made ruleset, you can't repost it!). I mostly expected this since they're GPL, but I also had a 10% belief that the wishes of the guy whom wrote the content would be respected at least by the moderators, but my statistics in that dignity and faith seemed to accurately reflect the outcome.

I then went to a few Xmas parties, did my holiday jingle and I came back to read the responses after new years, and I have to say I'm quite surprised how few understand open source. A few even said I threw a "temper tantrum" for not conceding to the license change? One even said "i don't know open source" because I removed my personal repositories?

The license change made very clear where Fantasygrounds stands on the subject of their "permissive front end" rulesets, and what they care about more as a company.


They want users to make, and share rulesets for games not officially supported to create market value both for the user in adapting their favored game system, and for the platform in terms of supporting other users who would be willing to "buy in" to Fantasy Grounds even if the unofficial ruleset is created by a fellow user.
In the event of acquiring an official license, perhaps even showing the popularity of said unsupported ruleset. If they're unable to get that user whom created it to "join the team" or assimilate as it were, then revoke that contribution's permission to use CoreRPG, and develop an official ruleset to sell.
In having only one ruleset exist for officially supported licensed systems, there's the argument that it unifies the user base for further purchases on the platform for content.


You can summarize it as the following:



"Hey, we're sharing our code which only works on our closed source back end to help increase access!" -- "Hey I see you made a thing, but we're going to release an official thing, wanna work for us and maintain your thing? ... Oh you don't want to work for us to become the official maintainer? Then we'll have to find/hire someone else, but you'll need to take down that contribution of yours."


For a frame of reference, Microsoft has done this, they want all the benefits of open source contributions to crowd-source access except where they smell a market. Then they'll "revoke" their permissive license and create a proprietary version... A case of point here is that my issue is not that the front end rulesets aren't open source, as I was fine with open permissive. It was them reserving the right to target those whom have helped them as soon as a market presented itself. What's even more damning of Smiteworks is they took the time to write language to target free contributions as opposed to language protecting it such that the broad use of "revoke at anytime" was made clear to only mean malicious actors.

Doug later argued in some follow up postings that the revised wording is for the broadest of coverage which "they'd likely never use". However... had I said nothing, or not have noticed this change, it was very clear what they wanted to do to free rulesets if it ever competed with an official one. As noted earlier, removal of the last sentence does little to prevent them from performing the original intention made clear by the unrevised version. The biggest chutzpah of that post was that Doug noted that the "worse case scenario" was to take down the free ruleset if the "IP holder complained" about a free ruleset existing. Now this is some serious chaff as having played smaller systems, I know for a fact that developers want their games to be as accessible to as many players as possible. Note that accessible here does not mean free! Back in the day of PbP, people commonly shared Excel spreadsheets that had automated character sheets to help others play the game. It didn't have the feats, the classes, abilities, or the build rules, but it made it easier for others to play the game online if they had the materials. FG rulesets are the same deal, they facilitate the means to play the game if they have the knowledge, and game makers balking at someone making it easier to play their system without violating any copyrighted material is beyond belief for me. Whats more atop of this, the "worst case scenario" is basically is choosing to shoot the family dog in the interest of getting more farm land, which says a lot about what Smiteworks values more. If FG truly cared, they'd go out to bat for the guy whom made the ruleset, and argue that this person, in their free time made it easier for others to play the game, gave it visibility, and that there's a hunger for an official ruleset and content without the need to axe that free creation’s distribution.

[Ken L]

Finally there was the argument made that said "Fantasy Grounds is just trying to protect its code since if they can't revoke on demand, they'll lose control of the code!" Now this really puzzles me something fierce. Firstly, this is not like branding where if you don't protect a brand, you'll lose control of it for 'marketable damages'. The front end logic for say CoreRPG can only work on Fantasy Ground's binary backend.... It can't work anywhere else. Lose control to what? The users? This isn't like Mongo DB where some have used their open source license to run modified versions of it without purchasing a service package. CoreRPG/3.5/5e rulesets only work on Fantasy Grounds, users need to buy fantasy grounds to run them, and the Smite ownership license already protects it from competing platforms trying to use it, or others selling derivatives not officially supported by FG. All the additional wording to the content license is to target free contributions from interfering with similar official ones in the name of profit.

Adjacent to this is that "Well you don't have to use CoreRPG, or the 5e ruelset as a basis for other rulesets, you can make your own from scratch!" Sure you don't have to use the 5e or 3.5 ruleset as a basis for another ruleset, but without the ability to use CoreRPG, you might as well just do something for another platform that respects contributions, and doesn't hold a gun behind their back. Making another ruleset from scratch that's effectively locked to the FG platform by virtue of relying of the Fantasygrounds API to protect from the ability of them yanking a ruleset from under you is pointless. Why do anything for Fantasy Grounds at that point?

--

Now that we have that all settled, lets say you agree with FG on the basis that they need to make money, and by having all these free alternatives based on some of their permissive code, it will cut into their sustainable profits.

The main money maker for 5e... is the content books. Monster manuals, drag-drop class libraries etc. They're purchased to work with the 5e ruleset. Users are already inclined to use their purchased content with 5e due to the tight integration. So how is having say, another 5e ruleset shared by someone else, perhaps based on coreRPG or built atop of 5e work cut into their sales?

Removing 5e from the equation, let's say someone makes a Polaris ruleset, and it gains some traction. Black Books Editions is eventually courted into granting a license for an official version on FG. FG contacts the guy whom made the free version of the ruleset and asks if they want to become the official maintainer with their free ruleset becoming the official one or perhaps to work with FG on the official one. Guy says no, he likes his own developed version, nor does he wish to make/maintain a paid for version.

FG now reserves the right to revoke the ability to use the permissive code on which this guy made his Polaris ruleset. Arguing in the interest of "unified content" or some other spiel, FG tells this guy to remove his ruleset in which he's forced to oblige to make way for the offical one as having more than one would "split the community" or what have you. Nothings worse than having 2 rulesets for a single system, the travesty of choice! Let's ignore that the official book content can be made optimized to the "official ruleset", and that this freely made one doesn’t even have any copyrighted content!


--

The last thing to cover here, is "why did you remove all your existing code?" Well the obvious answer is to voice my displeasure at the sudden change, or perhaps clarification of Fantasy Ground's view of those who make contributions based on their front end.

It shows Fantasy Grounds wants the benefits of contributions to expand access, but if there is a market opportunity, possibly opened by a contribution. FG would rather shoot the contributor, to make way for official paid variants if that contributor doesn't want to bend the knee and become a contractor.

So why would someone making these contributions want to help Fantasy Grounds? Why should I release things that support this behavior and outlook when there are other viable platforms?

There's also the matter of when I left Roll20, I left up all my Roll20 scripts, but here I took down my Fantasy Grounds ones? That's easy to answer, For all the hate I give Roll20's rent-your-tools model, their contributor license is MIT, and open source. Even their official 5e and PF character sheets are MIT and can be used for derivatives, and co-exist peacefully with other community PF and 5e character sheets.

Fantasy Grounds either changed, or made clear that their license is hostile to free contributions should they get in the way of company expansions, or profits. Roll20's was not, it was just a crappy rent-your-tools model, then market access to those free contributions by means of their pro subscriptions. I'd compare them to say.. renting the ability to use, and contribute to NPM, but each contributor still retaining ownership to their code, or whatever license they attached to it.

Given that all of my contributions were GPL, I fully expected someone to fork it. What surprised me was a moderator actively soliciting to put it back up, especially as that same moderator made the case that my contributions were ‘no real loss’.

So Doug, go ahead and put back that last line into your content license. I won’t be around to complain about it. Just make it clear and visible with all your rulesets so those who think about making contributions, will know that they'll be automatically revoked as that was your original intention, don’t let little me here get in your way.

[Myrdin Potter]

Ken L,

First, thanks as always for your contributions. They helped quite a few people get more out of their VTT choice.

I don’t think you had anything to do with the change to make it clear that Smiteworks could revoke access because you were not developing a ruleset. On the contrary, even when you asked them if they were using your ideas, they took your requests and made them a priority for API and other changes that were being made.

I think you take “open source” very seriously in your own personal beliefs and I can only respect your decision to not contribute to something if you are worried that their is a conflict with your beliefs. However, there is nothing wrong with a profit motive as the business here needs to pay IP holders and the employees that depend on the business. I find it very reasonable that Doug would take steps to protect the business and growth and improvements will help the users over time.

So thanks again for all the work you did and for your thoughtful posts about your personal beliefs.

[Ken L]

... On the contrary, even when you asked them if they were using your ideas, they took your requests and made them a priority for API and other changes that were being made.

...However, there is nothing wrong with a profit motive as the business here needs to pay IP holders and the employees that depend on the business. I find it very reasonable that Doug would take steps to protect the business and growth and improvements will help the users over time.



These points I missed earlier, but I'll answer them here and that should be all that's needed.

The API additions help them more than they help me. If I didn't petition for it, I'd wager background maps would not be in 3.3.7 as I proved that it could be done in 3.3.6, and had it working in 3.3.6 through a large hack. In a sense, they helped themselves rather than me, though I may have played a role in showing them how to do it.

Lastly profit is fine. It's how they make a profit. I get that you do legal for companies in SF, so you're used to defending corporate interests. What FG is doing is defending their natural monopoly which is fine and dandy. What I object to is them doing this after they've gotten contributions under the assumption that FG would not backstab them.

"Hey giving away free popcorn has really helped movie theater attendance, now get the f*ck out and we'll open a popcorn booth and sell it for $10 a bag."

[Myrdin Potter]

I’m an accountant (CFO), not a lawyer. I had a large team of lawyers reporting to me for quite a few years but I am not a lawyer.

I disagree with the way you are reading it, but that does not make your opinion wrong, it just means we have a different opinion.

[Bidmaron]

Ken, I'd certainly like to personally thank you for all that you did. You had some great material, and I was personally mourning the loss of your work.

Now, I'm no attorney either, but the way I interpreted what SW was saying was that they would on their own volition not likely ever invoke the clause you are concerned about. However, it is easy to see that a potential licensor of material might tell SW, "if you want to license my material, you have to take down the free version present now." I could certainly see someone like WotC doing that (heck, they even took down everything but 4e back during that debacle and only when they went to 5e brought it back). Some people do not share your view that having a free ruleset competing with a paid-for ruleset won't harm their paid ruleset sales. I think it'd be hard to prove either way.
This is only my opinion, but I think what they did is smart business. It protects them in the event an IP holder wants to issue them a license but wants the free stuff taken down. If such an IP holder does not make that stipulation, based on what I've seen over my years here, I doubt SW would invoke the clause (and I think that's what Doug was trying to say when he was speaking about the worst case).

Anyway, it sure pains me to lose such a valuable member of our community, but I understand your view (I just don't think SW would ever do what you are afraid of unless a publisher made them). While you have been successful in driving things in the FG codebase, I don't think your current drive will push them to do any more change than the line they deleted (which kind of demonstrates that they were trying to do what they thought they could in an effort not to lose such a valuable contributor??). IMO, they must leave the part that has you so riled up because some day it will happen, and if it came down to the ability of SW to get a popular ruleset officially licensed so copyrighted material could finally be released, I think the vast majority of that ruleset's fans would agree that SW did what it had to do to bring the material to market. And they would be doing this out of loyalty to the user base, because, as they have shown time-and-again, if they were only in it for the money, they'd probably drop support for a lot of the rulesets because they will never recover in profit what they spend in supporting the ruleset and its meager sales.

But I feel this way because I have consistently seen the kind of people that make up SW, and they have done lots of things that are inconsistent with solely maximizing profit, as you seem to believe is their motive. If that is indeed their motive, then they are a whole lot stupider than they appear to be. To me, I see a lot of evidence that these folks uniformly care about the user experience and consistently do things that are unlikely to pay back in profit. The pessimist might opine that maintaining good relations is a profitable thing to do overall, and it is really all just profit motive after all. Well, I choose not to think that way. And even if it were true, I think you could then conclude that, in the interest of overall customer relations and satisfaction, they would not invoke the death penalty on a contributor unless a publisher forced them to do so.

I didn't write this to get in a flame war with you, as I know nothing can change your mind at this point, but I wrote it because a lot of newer folks need to (IMO) hear the contrary viewpoint to your well-stated (and perhaps even true) stance. I want to reassure some of the less pessimistic recent converts to FG that in my many years here, I have never seen a SW (and I was here before SW owned FG) that would do what you fear of their own volition. And I'd even go so far as to opine that, short of an alien or demonic possession, I feel confident they would never do what you fear. It would not be consistent with what i have observed (but I suppose demonic possession is possible???).

I'm not sure where you will turn next, Ken, and that is the most troublesome aspect of this, because I just don't think there are truly viable alternatives other than (in a very deficient way) Roll20. Good luck though wherever you settle. You are obviously able enough to even write your own VTT from what I've seen!

[TVDinner]

So how is having say, another 5e ruleset shared by someone else, perhaps based on coreRPG or built atop of 5e work cut into their sales?.

Trademarks. A trademark holder has to watch out for their trademark and take action when someone else uses it, or somehow dilutes it (say, by creating a ruleset, be it competing, sub-standard, or whatever). Violating a trademark will likely result in being told in some form to stop. That can cut sales.

Non-trademark stuff? GPL away, use a third-party web site out of reach of anybody you're concerned about.

As a different example from Ken L's stuff, look at Celestian's AD&D Core. The various parties involved have been extremely generous allowing it to continue and I thank them for it. I use it, but I know it can get yanked at any time. Maybe it's not D&D, maybe it's not AD&D enough, it's not my choice.

[Talyn]

I would also like to thank you for your contributions. I got extensive usage out of your PFRPG NPC creator extension.

Not sure when SmiteWorks changed the language; first I heard of this was when Paizo first licensed we were told that they wanted that clause that once any official DLC was released, they had the option (actually it was phrased as mandatory at the time) of having the community version pulled. Maybe SW just applied that across the board, but you'll notice no PFRPG community content has been pulled.

Here's my thing: some of the programmers, such as Ikael and Trenloe off the top of my head, either intentionally contribute code or allow parts of their code to be implemented into CoreRPG or other tools. That's awesome, because everyone gets to benefit from that. A lot of users were hooked on your Advanced Kombat and I've seen several users say that some of the features should be built into CoreRPG/5E but your licensing choice expressly prohibits that unless John and Carl stop what they're doing to completely reinvent your scripts to avoid licensing conflicts. Then there were all the forum and Discord conversations where John took time away from Unity to add several new API features because you asked for them.

Then out of nowhere, because of your evangelism for FOSS, you pack up your toys and go home. That's totally in your purview, but as an outside observer, it was disappointing to witness that type of behavior, then the equivalent of two separate "rage quit" threads to boot... C'mon, you're better than that, Ken.

[Ram Tyr]

A lot of users were hooked on your Advanced Kombat and I've seen several users say that some of the features should be built into CoreRPG/5E but your licensing choice expressly prohibits that unless John and Carl stop what they're doing to completely reinvent your scripts to avoid licensing conflicts.
I just want to make sure I'm on the right page...

Does anyone believe that Ken L.'s use of GPL (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_General_Public_License) is something to criticize?

I linked something there just to be 100% certain that there isn't another GPL license under discussion.


Then out of nowhere, because of your evangelism for FOSS, you pack up your toys and go home.
So, you disagree with the principles of FOSS?


That's totally in your purview, but as an outside observer, it was disappointing to witness that type of behavior
So, no disappointment at the Smiteworks choices under discussion... only with Ken L.'s response despite his thoughtful discussion.


then the equivalent of two separate "rage quit" threads to boot...
I wish all the "rage quit" posts were actually the equivalent of Ken L.'s discussion. What a wonderful world that would be.

I'm with Bidmaron (who disagrees with Ken L.'s choice without resorting to such a characterization), Ken L.'s posting is more of the "well stated and perhaps even true" variety than the "rage quit" variety.

I didn't write this to get in a flame war with you, as I know nothing can change your mind at this point, but I wrote it because a lot of newer folks need to (IMO) hear the contrary viewpoint to your well-stated (and perhaps even true) stance.
I think it's great for folks to point out the contrary viewpoint.

Given my current understanding of this issue and my experience with Fantasy Grounds, I disagree with you, Bidmaron. And, allow me to say that I am not a pessimistic new user.

[LordEntrails]

I just want to make sure I'm on the right page...

Does anyone believe that Ken L.'s use of GPL (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_General_Public_License) is something to criticize?
Criticism is not bad. Everything has a pro and con.

The comment regarding Ken's use of the GPL license means that the code Ken has created can not be used in the official FG code, otherwise all of their code would be subject to be released under the OGL, which might not be a good business decision. It also means that even mimicing any of the functions that his code has done means their might be a legal case to argue his code was used (fractional, slippery, but such legal claims have been made before).

So, unlike most other community extensions that have allowed their functions to be incorporated into the official code, Ken has clearly stated that his code can not be. Nothing wrong with that, but it is a limitation on the license.

[ddavison]

I'm an advocate for developers choosing the licensing that makes the most sense to them personally. If a developer wants to give it over to a community and relinquish control, then they should put it under a public license. If a developer wants to be able to choose how their code is used, then a different license makes sense. SmiteWorks chooses to have a direct hand in how all of our code works and who we work with. Ken L did not choose this method. For that reason, we won't be extending or building upon any of Ken L's code. Ken chose to take his stuff down but because he published it under a public license, anyone is free to pick it up and build upon it as long as they keep the same license. I think it is pretty obvious why we would choose not to do this.

I choose not to get upset over what people might do or can do and instead focus on what people actually do or have done. I'm pretty happy with our 10 years of experience and stewardship of Fantasy Grounds and its community. I look forward to seeing it continue to grow for the next decade with a good balance of profitability and support of our community.

With all that has transpired, we would happily welcome Ken L to rejoin the community in whatever way he feels comfortable. If he chooses to move along, then we wish him well.

[Ken L]

If a developer wants to be able to choose how their code is used, then a different license makes sense. SmiteWorks chooses to have a direct hand in how all of our code works and who we work with.

You glossed over the part where you expressly targeted free contributions for automatic removal, and why that decision was made. You’re only defending retaining the clause to ‘revoke at any time’ as that’s easier to defend for you, and sounds more diplomatic to your customers as you brandish the knife to your contributors. As I stated before, had I not brought this up you would have gladly preferred that to be part of your license.

Your reason is that you want the benefits of contributions, and the benefits of the natural monopoly built on your API ecosystem, you just don’t want to say it. Let those crowd sourcers increase your access, and when needed, step in to utilize that access for business expansion at the expense of those whom increased that access should they not bend the knee, or be enticed by whatever prestiges that being the ‘maintainer’ for that ruleset provides them.



… chose to take his stuff down but because he published it under a public license, anyone is free to pick it up and build upon it as long as they keep the same license. I think it is pretty obvious why we would choose not to do this.

I published it under a GPL license, you make it sound like public domain, which it is not. Again, I re-iterate that the issue was not that the permissive license wasn’t open source, it’s that it was altered to expressly target those whom have helped your platform. That is unforgivable. The change after I brought it up was done to save face, but still retains the right to perform the original intention in the unrevised format.

And no, I’m not going to ‘boomerang’ back to this platform. It has shown its age, and I’ve made my displeasures known about it. The reason I stuck around was the ability to modify and ‘fix it’ for others.

That incentive is gone.

[LordEntrails]

Ken, I think you are reading the worst into the situation and assuming the worse case motivations for the license change by SmiteWorks, despite no evidence of motivation and continued actions on many fronts by SmiteWorks that lead many of us to believe that they have no such draconian intentions.


You glossed over the part where you expressly targeted free contributions for automatic removal, and why that decision was made. ...
Your reason is that you want the benefits of contributions...

The change after I brought it up was done to save face,
That's one possibility for the change. Or it may have been Doug considering the input of the community (you), and reconsidering all of the possible numerous inputs and influences and revising the statement to reach a compromise for the myriad needs. Again, assuming motivation is not only unfair, it's just plain inaccurate in such a case.


I published it under a GPL license, you make it sound like public domain, which it is not.
As an example, this here. When Doug said you "published it under a public license" you interpret that to be some sort of "Public Domain" statement. And that's a really poor connotation of his statement. As you know, GPL standards for 'General Public License'; Doug's statement, GPL, and Public Domain all have one thing in common, the word public, and that's it.

You keep putting word into Doug's mouth and telling everyone why he has done certain things. That's just wrong.

[AlphaDecay]

You keep putting word into Doug's mouth and telling everyone why he has done certain things. That's just wrong.

Plus, when you consider the other posts to his original extension thread, where he shows videos of what 2.0 could have been (like a look what you won't get now tone) - and these responses where he puts words/motivations into other's mouths, the whole thing is devolving into a cringe worthy situation. Leave on a positive note Ken (or at this point as positive as it can be).

[Ken L]

you are reading the worst into the situation and assuming the worse case motivations for the license change by SmiteWorks, despite no evidence of motivation and continued actions on many fronts by SmiteWorks that lead many of us to believe that they have no such draconian intentions.


You're an end user, as far as end users are concerned someone pulled content, so they must bad or raging or what have you. They have less things to work with, so it's easy for a company to pull a Sheryl Sandberg and make light of the issue as a disgruntled contributor, and paint it as a malicious actor to the community.

Next, is license agreements, as for those in software development they mean everything as to what a company intends to do, or won’t. Automatic revocation is premeditated, there’s no “whoops we worded it wrong” for them to pull, and Smiteworks skipped over addressing why they did it, they just removed it and defended the more vaguely worded text.


“I have a gun now, and I intend to shoot you if you get in my way”

vs


“I have a gun now.”

Revising the statement doesn’t make it all better, especially given the prior one made. The intent, even if only for part of its use was made clear.

If they wanted to make it ‘all better’ then there would be added text to clarify.


”I have a gun now, as insurance against someone robbing my property and to defend my family, or go hunting or sport, I won’t use it outside that context.”

They didn’t, and as such the use includes all of the above, including the ‘unrevised’ statement which showed intent.

In response to GPL, that was my opinion as to what it sounded like in the way it was worded and used. My only direct ‘word stuffing’ was my take on why they never addressed the unrevised original license change they made; and absent of a rational, it’s all speculation. Not answering the question can still be considered answering it as complicity.

Finally regarding that they removed it in response as “listening to the community”, Think about that for a second there…. Usually the first words out of someone’s mouth are the most honest. The first words in this case was to target free contributions, and get rid of them when it’s profitable to do so.

PS:
As to the videos, I had spent a bunch of time on it, and the video was originally meant for my alpha users since I didn't have a manual. Since it was dead, why not? This is personal preference, but go ahead and demonize, ignore the actors behind the curtain.

[LordEntrails]

You're an end user, as far as end users are concerned someone pulled content, so they must bad or raging or what have you. They have less things to work with, so it's easy for a company to pull a Sheryl Sandberg and make light of the issue as a disgruntled contributor, and paint it as a malicious actor to the community.
So now you are telling me what I think? You really need to step back and think about that. I have a very high regard for you, and in such a sense I will again ask you to step back and consider other views are possible, reasonable, and that you stop making claims about what others intend and think.

[Moon Wizard]

I think that Ken has had his chance to state his position, and that this thread is on its way in the wrong direction of becoming a flame war. Therefore, I am closing this thread.

Regards,
JPG